Set within the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Liberty Farm is a new home designed to operate entirely off-grid. It is the first project in the UK to feature a hydrogen-powered energy centre providing both heat and electricity for the house and the wider farm.
Landscape and ecology
The project restores 25 acres of chalk downland through rewilding and replants woodland lost to ash dieback, strengthening the site’s biodiversity. These measures also allow the scheme to achieve nutrient neutrality within the Stodmarsh catchment area.
Design and construction
The house is set into the hillside, creating sheltered indoor and outdoor spaces including living areas, dining terraces, and a pool. Rammed chalk from the site will form the walls, reducing reliance on concrete. Deep window reveals and timber louvres help control solar gain and limit light spill into the surrounding landscape.
Engineering
Price & Myers are providing structural and civil engineering for the project, which is now under construction.
Working closely with geotechnical specialists A-Squared Studio, we have developed a substructure design that ensures the stability of the chalk slope both during construction and in the long term. Carefully sequenced groundworks and the specification of temporary propping during compaction allowed us to minimise the amount of reinforcement within the retaining structure.
The superstructure is formed of cranked glulam beams, spaced to create a rhythm reminiscent of exposed timber joists within a generous open volume. The beams cantilever beyond the external walls to form deep eaves, protecting the rammed chalk walls from the weather. Steelwork has been minimised, used only where longer spans are required to open views across the hillside.
To maintain the project’s self-sufficient ethos, the civil design enables all surface and foul water to be managed on site. Foul water will be treated and discharged through a drainage field, while surface water will be directed to soakaways.
