Prince Charles's Natural House

Prince Charles has spoken for years about the importance of both sustainability and tradition. He hopes that the two can work side by side in towns, cities and villages to reflect a fundamental harmony between nature and human beings. Through developments such as Poundbury and Newquay he hopes to have put some of his ideas into practice.

The Prince has The Foundation for the Built Environment which is the architecture, design and educational charity wing of the Duchy of Cornwall. Through these he hopes to build places which are versatile and have enduring appeal, he wants villages where people can walk from their house to the shops or to the school where design is rooted in local identity. Prince Charles thinks that these sorts of principles should be the basics of design but they are often not by professionals, but he hopes that times are changing.

Prince Charles's main concerns are that the planet is becoming more and more urban therefore its resources are becoming scarcer. Even though we are adding solar panels to our homes to try and save energy, this is not enough. He feels that we should rethink the way we plan our homes, shops and schools and their relationship with one another. Eco-engineering can learn from Nature and we need to put emphasis on the design of our homes within our communities and use natural resources. Wind turbines and solar panels do not solve the fundamental problems, we need to be building homes designed to demand little or no energy from the beginning.

Prince Charles has worked with his foundation and the Building Research Establishment and Kingerlee Homes to produce the Natural House. It is designed to demonstrate the most effective route to low-energy and low carbon homes built with longevity in mind but with a traditional appeal. Prince Charles admits to being very proud of the Natural House.

The emphasis of the Natural House is on natural low impact materials that not only work well together but can be produced in this country. Although it is based on a traditional approach it has the best new technologies and it built on site by local workforces. The Natural House uses clay blocks and lime based plasters. These reduce the risk of poor air quality and the House also has a breathable wall system which stops mould and damp accumulating. This is blamed on many asthma and respiratory problems so the design in the Natural House helps both the environment and the health of those in it.

The Natural House is being shown at The Ideal Home Show and will be centrepiece there. Prince Charles hopes to show those who visit the House that not all eco homes are strange looking and out of the ordinary and that eco homes are a nice place to live in.

So what are the benefits of his Natural House:

· The House has natural clay tiles which will make the roof last longer and the tiles will not fade in the sun.
· The roof and also the floor will be insulated with sheep's wool.
· Honey-comb like clay blocks will make up the walls which will keep the Natural House warm in the winter but also cool in the summer.
· Heat is retained through the chimney flue which is made of insulated volcanic pumice rock from Iceland.
· The Natural House has triple glazed windows and high ceilings to flood the house with daylight.
· No fans are needed in the house in the summer due to the natural "stack" ventilation which promotes air flow.

Prince Charles's Eco Village in Newquay

Prince Charles first dabbled in property developing back in 1994 when he built Poundbury, his model town in Dorset. Soon Tregunnel Hill on the outskirts of Newquay in Cornwall will become another Duchy of Cornwall development. It looks as though the planners there will give the go ahead this month for 170 homes to be built on a 10 acre plot on the southwest edge of the town. Eventually 1,000 homes will be built there but this is just the first stage of the development.

This model village has been decades in the planning and whilst many of the big volume house builders scaled back on their construction, Prince Charles is stepping up his. So far Prince Charles has built 1,200 homes on 250 acres of Duchy of Cornwall land and in the next decade he is hoping to build 17,000 more. This time he hopes to be building all over the country. An important property fact is that Prince Charles built more homes in 2009 than the volume builder Persimmon Homes.

The development that he is building in Newquay is being nicknamed "Surfbury", it will be pedestrian friendly and materials used from local suppliers. There will be terraced cottages and grander two storey detached houses, these will be made from Trevillet slate. Everything in the village will need to have the royal seal of approval as it is well known that Prince Charles does not like modernity but favours traditional materials. The project manager of the development admits that Prince Charles has received lots of different samples of materials ranging from Hemcrete which is hemp bound with lime to blocks made from recycled waste clay and straw.

The main emphasis of the development at Newquay, as with other developments that he has been involved in, is sustainability. The architect involved stresses that the key to it is to use local materials and to build in the traditional ways. The idea is to have a house which is cool in summer and warm in winter. Ground source heat pumps and solar panels are only economically viable as long as the feed-in tariffs are maintained but the government is already thinking of reducing these in the near future.

Prince Charles knows what he is talking about after his success at Poundbury. The "eco village" is made up of townhouses, cottages, shops and businesses and is now called home to 1,500 people. There have been critics of the village, some calling it "toy town" but there are always buyers willing to live there. Three bedroom terraced properties go on the market for £249,950. Many talk of the community spirit of the village and all ages tend to settle there.

Prince Charles's other development is Coed Darcy, a development built on 1,400 acres of brownfield land between Swansea and Neath. The £1.2billion site was once the first crude-oil refinery in Britain and work began in 2008. Residents have already moved into some of the houses on the development last Christmas. Many of the residents took advantage of the shared ownership scheme offered which meant that they only had to come up with a 5% deposit. The agent looking after sales of the new homes there has spoken of how popular the traditional houses are to buyers. Prices start at £79,995 for a studio and go up to £199,995 for a four bedroom family home.

Another development is based in Knockroon near Cumnock. The 69 acre site used to be an old mining village but will now house 600 new homes, however there are tough rules to adhere to like Poundbury had. There are to be no satellite dishes allowed and the lettering of houses should be no bigger than 3in high. There are also restrictions on hedges in terms of colour and species. Prince Charles's developments are not without their critics, many architects say that his view sustainability equates to "old looking". Even if something is eco friendly but is modern they feel that Prince Charles will not approve. This has not stopped the Prince, he is now looking to re-build 50 blocks in the old quarter of Port-au-Prince after the Haitian earthquake and there are plans for an eco-town in Calcutta. This will provide 15,000 sustainable homes for the people there.