Award-winning zero-carbon detached house and studio. Winner of the RIBA Downland Prize 2011. Featured 6 times in Brighton’s Eco Open Houses Show. This detached zero-carbon three-bedroom house and studio provides the living and working space for Koru Architects. The design creatively makes use of a constricted, sloping site to create a spacious, light-filled contemporary home with seamless connections to the garden. Roof integrated solar PV panels provide the electricity demand and solar thermal panels supplement a wood pellet biomass boiler to power the underfloor heating and domestic hot water. Rainwater is harvested for WC flushing and garden use. Natural materials, low in embodied energy, have been used throughout: including hemp insulation, oak cladding, zinc roofing and lime render. The living room roof also features a green sedum roof. Because of these sustainable features, the dwelling uses half the energy of the average UK household and emits 93% less carbon.