Segal inspired a generation of self-builders and architects with a socialist approach to building your own home. The street on which the house sits was built out entirely by the original occupiers, facilitated by the local council who could not afford to develop the site using traditional methods. That collective spirit remains - and has been described by some street residents as "a virus that is impossible to avoid!"

Our clients, Jo and Justin caught the bug upon moving into the house as "second generation" Segalists and soon found that the much-loved home had reached a point in its life-cycle where repairs and adaptations were needed to keep it fit for modern life. This included "pushing out" the original panelised construction to create larger rooms, renewing the roof to fix leaks, replacing (and moving) windows to improve privacy and accessibility to the lush garden, and adding a thick layer of environmentally-friendly insulation around the entire building to minimize drafts and keep the heat in. Materials were chosen to be as "natural" as possible - with woodfibre insulation chosen over more toxic plastic-based products, and EPDM rubber roofing over oil-based bitumen.

We maintained much of the existing fabric with the removal of existing ‘glasal’ external finish. We used a breathable construction externally for the retrofit with doubt about over insulating the building in terms of moisture transfer across the existing breathable walls. We were aware that by improving the airtightness this also increased the likelihood of condensation. The existing external walls had an estimated U-value of 0.64 W/m2K. With space and budget restraints we were led to overclad these walls with Steico-flex wood fibre insulation ensuring breathability. We achieved a high thermal performance improvement bringing the U-value to 0.24 W/m2K. Successfully applying the same adaptation to the construction of the existing roof which improved the U-value from 0.37 W/m2K to 0.18 W/m2K

Before and after:

Photography by: Taran Wilkhu