Tiny House Community Bristol
Plans for the UK's first tiny house regenerative settlement in Sea Mills, Bristol.
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Site Layout early sketch: North Site.
Barefoot Architects.
SUMMER / AUTUMN 2024: Our Planning Application is in!
It has been an epic journey since we held our public consultation in 2022. We want to thank everyone who fed into the consultation. Your insights, questions, feelings, ideas and stories have helped us to further shape the plans of this ground breaking project, thank you.
2023 and Spring 2024 saw us working up our scheme with the many excellent professionals that are needed to create a planning application. There were long delays and challenges along the way, not least, learning how the system does and doesn't enable groups of people to develop their own homes and communities. But we are so grateful to all those who have helped us (and are continuing to help us) along the way. It's definitely an epic team effort and working together has been a lot of fun amidst all the challenges. Our active members have managed to do this between family, work life and the many ups and downs life brings. Such an amazing bunch of people. In that time many of our active members have had to navigate housing difficulties - rents going up, tenancies being ended, sofa surfing, caravan dwelling - we need a system which helps us to create the homes we need, in places where we need them, at prices we can afford, in 1-3 years, not 5-7 years. This is far too long. We're working out how, for our next Tiny House scheme, we can do it faster, and cheaper without compromising on quality or values.
We submitted our planning application to Bristol City Council in early Summer 2024 and have since received comments from many different people and are working to integrate the comments into our proposal. We now have a planning case officer who, if you're a neighbour to the site, might be knocking on your door soon.
This scheme is the first of its kind. It is a serious endeavour with a long term vision of building resilience and wellbeing for everyone.
Having the support of individuals and organisations who would like to see this succeed will make all the difference.
Please comment on our planning application
The key document is our Planning Statement. You can read it here.
We've created a useful How-To doc with all the links you need to make an informed comment on our planning application - CLICK HERE
Our Crowdfunder is in development! Please keep an eye on the Blog for more info and to donate through GoFundMe shortly...
Key elements
ONE PLANET living
Normal house building, and the way we live in industrialised capitalist countries, consumes more resources than the planet can regenerate and Cretes inequality. The Tiny House movement is about using only our fair share, sharing resources, repair and reuse, simplicity, low cost living and low impact solutions. All our members want to live this way and find ways to have both shared abundance and self-sufficiency in a secure community.
Sustainability
Passivhaus Institute Low Energy Building Standard
100% renewable energy (including design that optimises sunlight/warmth)
Reusing and recycling materials and using low-impact, energy efficient and healthy modular building systems
Water harvesting
Rules to enable minimal car use and maximum use of bikes, walking and public transport.
Biodiversity
Greater natural biodiversity, soil recovery and remediation (removal of concrete and tarmac), and habitat, ponds, swift boxes, wild edges
Affordability
Homes for rent and shared ownership will not be able to be sold on the open market - affordability will be forever. Rents will be set for actual affordability relating to income and not set by the market.
Community
The residents will be a fully mutual housing cooperative which will involve roles and responsibilities to support peaceful co-existence with each other and our neighbours and wider community of Sea Mills. Residents will be members of Tiny House Community Bristol, committed to our vision, Mission and Aims and playing an active part in creating healthy, caring community and making decisions together.
The Site
The proposed site at Sea Mills is made up of two areas of land on the former construction skills training centre known as ‘the Matrix’. It's apt that it will again be place for learning about building skills but now with. focus on resilience, nature and community. It is currently looked after by residential guardians. The green open space on the west side of the north site has been looked after by neighbours for many years under garden licenses with the Council. Most of this area (plus other new areas) will continue to be a shared garden and food growing area in keeping with this care and its heritage.
In 2020, Bristol City Council invited THCB to bid for the land, and have made us ‘preferred bidder’. Due to our values, ideas, approach and vision, we have been given the opportunity to develop these Matrix sites.
There are very few sites brough forward by the Council for groups to develop. And this is the first time the Council has brought sites forward in this way, and the first time THCB has done a development. We are innovating and learning all the way along. It's not easy but the rewards and the impact of making it a success will be life changing.
Existing site plan with the proposed area for potential development outlined in red.
The proposal is for:
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13 new homes run by residents as a housing cooperative
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Communal facilities: Common house (for shared kitchen, eating, events & workspace, refill shop), workshop for crafts and repairs, guest tiny, laundry, bike stores)
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Shared gardens which are productive and beautiful (permaculture principles)
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Generating own energy (solar, ground source heat)
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Minimal waste and minimal car-use (with agreements and management plans that residents sign up to)
There will be 9 homes on the north site and 4 homes on the south site. It will be a mix of mostly 1 and 2 bedrooms with a couple of three bed homes and one wheelchair accessible home to help with the housing diversity of Sea Mills and the needs of our members.
Both sites have long, narrow driveways, making access difficult. So we will be promoting and encouraging minimal or no car use by residents. We're looking into how to set up a car club scheme for the neighbourhood and will have manual and electric bicycle storage and charging.
The Proposal
Accessible homes in a beautiful, productive shared garden - srtists impression. Barefoot Architects.
Site Layouts
North Site (coming north off The Crescent)
After thorough surveying and analysis by our architects we realised we cannot retain and reuse the buildings as they are, they are too unstable and poorly built for the high quality, low-bills homes we want to live in, which need to be built to last. So we will be dismantling the existing buildings and reusing as much of the materials as possible, with the inspiring guidance and management of Jenny Ford at Materials in Mind.
We will re-build in more or less the same locations as the old buildings, with the same courtyard arrangement so the layout will seem familiar. Some of he new buildings will be 1.5 storeys high and the common house with shared kitchen and workspace will be two storeys (though we will dig down a bit to lower the impact on our neighbours).
Left - computer-aided-design (CAD) image of the north site. Below - Birds eye view.
South Site (coming south off The Crescent)
The South site is currently a disused area of many layers of compacted tarmac, which was formerly used for training and parking for the Matrix. It is surrounded by houses on all sides, and has a narrow access and lot of nature around the edges. It will have two blocks: the first a terrace of two 1 bed homes and a guest micro-tiny, and the second a semi-detached pair of two bed homes. A communal building, shared garden and food growing spaces will be part of this area.
Above - CAD image of South Site. Right - Birds Eye view.
Design
We have explored a design approach that responds to the local character, the various challenging site constraints, sustainability and affordability and the needs of our members who are involved in developing the scheme and hope to live here. We have put our values, family and community needs and hopes for the future into this design. We have had to compromise on certain things along the way because of requirements of the Council who own the land. Designing something that the planners will approve is a very expensive process and we have had to secure multiple grants and loans to make this happen.
IElements you'll see in the designs:
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The proposed 1.5 storey asymmetric roof shape reflects the roof shapes of the surrounding houses.
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The homes will have low eaves (gutter level) to all boundaries, with no windows facing outwards, so there will be no more overlooking to existing surrounding homes and gardens than at present.
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The materials from the existing buildings (which are too poor quality to be refurbished) will be reused in many different aspects of the new build.
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Roofs face south to capture solar energy.
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Rainwater will be collected and stored for use on site.
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Plants will grow around balconies and walkways to provide beautiful screening and shading, and softening of edges.
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Rooflights will provide light to the rear rooms (bathrooms and stairs).
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Gardens and open spaces will be shared for playing, relaxing, pollinators and growing food.
See our Design and Access Statement from Barefoot Architects:
Part 1 here (Executive summary, layout & context, design concepts, community consultation)
Part 2 here (Density, appearance, house layouts, elevations, materials)
Part 3 here (Appearance, highways and parking, waste, cycles, flooding, conclusion)
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Site Layout: Overview - early design idea - give s a good sense of the scheme in context.