Despite the tricky construction challenges presented by a crescent-shaped architectural design, a determined couple have succeeded in creating their dream ‘forever’ home in the countryside
TEXT Jess Unwin IMAGES John Naccarato
John and Debra Naccarato’s decision to embrace a striking and unique architectural design certainly threw some ‘curve balls’ their way during the journey to make their self-build dream a reality.
Today, curves instead of straight lines and right angles are at the heart of the spectacular crescent-shaped layout and climbing roofline of the couple’s now complete award-winning home, The Pump House, in the South Downs National Park.
Yet those same curves presented plenty of headaches during construction, repeatedly pushing former solicitor John and his building team to come up with innovative solutions to quite literally bend a range of different materials to his will.
The couple’s self-build story began in 2016 when they spent £400,000 on land that had once been the site of a water authority pumping station. “Plans had already been drawn up when we bought the plot,” says John, “and because of planning requirements it would’ve been virtually impossible to start from scratch, so we had to be happy with what we saw”.
He adds: “We have made some small tweaks to those original plans, but we’ve always thought it was a beautiful design, so what you see now is pretty much what we saw in plan form then.”
With experience gained in refurbishing other properties, John and Debra had decided some time before 2016 that building their own house was the next logical step and was, says John, “the best way of getting a house that could be our forever home with everything we wanted”.
However, John admits: “I’d never built a house before and I felt there was an awful lot I needed to learn, so I retired from my job as a solicitor and between 2016 and 2019 I basically researched how to build a house and meet all the planning requirements. You could say I almost did a degree in housebuilding. Google became my best friend!”
When building work got underway, John threw himself into project management: “There was a lot of problem-solving onsite and that’s something I was used to doing for clients when I worked for a law firm.
“Every day there was something new to grapple with, but I never thought there was anything we couldn’t do – there was always a solution and that’s what I really enjoyed, working through challenges.
“All the subcontractors were fantastic – there were so many issues we had to deal with but none of them said to me, you’ve never built a house, so just let us get on with it. We were able to work out how to do things day by day.”
While every self-build project presents its own ‘bumps in the road’, the constantly reoccurring challenge at The Pump House was how to approach the curved elements of the building design.
To create curved walls, insulated concrete form (ICF) – blocks that are essentially a polystyrene ‘sandwich’ with a concrete filling – was chosen as the building structure system best suited to the task. “It’s a great system and the ICF suppliers helped a lot,” says John, “but working with ICF was a completely new experience for many of the building team.”
Curved walls (and sometimes ceilings too) posed a problem when it came to fixing plasterboard internally or rendering outside. John says: “If anything needed a bend, I got involved. I pretty much learned how to bend every type of material.”
He continues: “The roof decking was just one example of the challenges I got involved with. The building is crescent-shaped, so the joists had to be all different lengths. We also had an essentially flat roof, so we needed to work out how to get the rises and falls of that roof to take rainfall away. Our joists weren’t running in the same direction as the falls, so we constructed two layers of decking.
“We laid one layer completely flat, fixed to the joists, and then laid out battens at whatever angles we needed, fixed to the flat deck. Each piece of plywood had to be cut four times because of the curves and then they had to do it twice because we had two layers.”
John and his team were faced with another puzzle when it came to fixing plasterboard to the two-storey-high curved ceiling above the lounge-dining area: “I worked out we had to
put down strips, fixed to the joists, and then a batten fixed to all of those so there were essentially rails to follow when fixing the plaster board. We also used several layers of a slightly thinner plasterboard too so they would bend more easily.”
John’s ingenuity was called upon once more when it was realised that aluminium strips on the roof edge would have to be bent in plan and elevation. John designed jigs for a chop saw to cut between 100 and 200 slots in each aluminium strip so that they could be fixed to the roof in the shape needed.
Glazing was yet another aspect of construction that was impacted by curves – on the southern elevation of the house, a convex curve was needed for the windows at second-storey height and then a concave curve for the smaller doors onto the patio. On this occasion at least John didn’t have to figure out a solution and this bespoke glazing, along with the rest of the windows and doors, was supplied and fitted by 21° (formerly Green Building Store).
Besides accommodating curves, The Pump House features a long list of ‘green’ credentials – something that’s due to John and Debra’s own high sustainability ambitions and also to meet the planning permission conditions for the site. The Ultra Range windows and doors, for example, have helped achieve an annual kWh/m2 figure that surpasses the Passivhaus standard, while the majority of the windows are deliberately south facing to take advantage of solar gain and provide warmth in the winter.
The couple’s new house has an SAP (standard assessment procedure) score of 121 and an A-grade EPC (energy performance certificate). While most of the property’s roofing is PVCu, a substantial area has been given over to a green roof that’s seeded with a mix of meadow wildflowers. A 5,000-litre rainwater harvesting system supplies water for roof and garden irrigation – and for all the WCs and the washing machine. Solar PV panels feed a Tesla Powerwall 2 battery, which enables the export of excess solar electricity to the grid and off-grid power at night or during a power cut.
High levels of insulation and airtightness, combined with mechanical ventilation and heat recovery equipment, means near constant internal temperatures – whatever the external temperature. John reveals: “We have been able to maintain comfortable internal temperatures when the temperature outside has been below 0°C and as high as 30°C without the use of heating or air conditioning.
He adds: “Underfloor heating has been installed throughout, but we’ve not needed to use it so far. Hot water and heating, if required, is provided by a 12 kW air source heat pump.”
The Pump House has also been designed in compliance with the specifications of the Lifetime Homes Standards, which requires, among other things, wide doors, level thresholds and space for a home office.
The build was conducted with rigid compliance to waste management standards which resulted in less than 2% of the waste generated during construction ending up in landfill, while the planting of more than 750 herbaceous and medicinal plants, bulbs, trees and shrubs has helped to increase the biodiversity of the site.
With all work finally completed in 2023, John and Debra are now enjoying the results, living at the property with their two adult children. Their new home, set in beautiful countryside that is just a 10-minute drive from Brighton, has 380m2 of living space and includes five bedrooms (one of which is currently being used as an office).
The exterior of the building is a mixture of timber (sweet chestnut) cladding and silicon render. It’s mostly single storey but on the western side it rises to two storeys. Here, making the most of that height, is where you will find an open-plan lounge, dining space and kitchen, while the upper floor hosts more living space and a curved gallery walkway that takes you to the master bedroom, complete with ensuite and walk-in dressing room.
Adjoining this two storey section is a single storey extension, housing an ensuite bedroom with a balustraded terrace area above it. On the north side of this extraordinary house is more single storey space where you can find a cinema room, gym, integral garage and the main entrance. Looking out on superb views, the heavily glazed southern aspect features an attractive lawn and patio.
Not surprisingly, John and Debra are delighted – but their dream home has come at a higher-than-expected cost. “We did underestimate the cost,” says John, “and there are a lot of factors behind that.
“The increase in the cost of materials because of things like Brexit and Covid was of course significant, and certain things took longer to do than anticipated so that cost more. To be onsite I was living in a rented Airbnb and ultimately moved the whole family into a rented house nearby, and that went on longer than expected too.” And on the curved designs he admits: “I knew curves would be more expensive than rectangles, but I didn’t appreciate exactly how much more!”
The couple had hoped the sale of their former family home in Hertfordshire and other property they owned would entirely fund their self-build but, in the end, a mortgage was necessary to get the project over the finishing line.
“We thought that construction costs would be around £900,000 and it ended up costing around £1.4m but the important thing is that we have a quality build,” says John. “I find it hard to do things in a half-hearted way and I wanted to look around and be proud of what we built.”
The Pump House has been assessed for mortgage purposes and John and Debra are very pleased with the valuation they were given but, more important than that, they’re happy to have realised their dream.
“We love what we have achieved,” says John. “Debra was brought up in the country, so this environment is something really special for her. It’s taken longer to build than we thought, been more expensive and been stressful at times too, but now we’re through that we’re both absolutely chuffed with what we’ve got.”