ABSTRACT
Low Impact Living Affordable Community tackled three aspects of sustainable housing design – the carbon footprint of buildings, housing affordability and the creation of a community using co-housing principles. LILAC was built using the ModCell(R) prefabricated straw bale construction system. Residents formed a Mutual Home Ownership Society, into which they each pay 35% of their net income, as an alternative to individual mortgages. Around the same time, the Department of Energy and Climate Change had put a fund together for the use of renewable materials, not just renewable energy, on housing schemes. LILAC is surrounded by ordinary red-brick town housing. The area is very suburban in feel with no distinctive features, apart from the hills, indicating that we are in Yorkshire.
