Eco-friendly homes
As a former luxury vehicle and aerospace engineer, Virdie has used his expertise to create a more environmentally friendly way of living.
Materials are lightweight and sourced locally, reducing the amount of energy and carbon footprint needed for construction.
The pods require little or no foundations, so the ground doesn't have to be dug up to build them, and there's no guttering - enabling rainwater to run off and be reabsorbed into the earth.
Virdie has also engineered them to be energy-efficient to live in, too, with insulation and a heat recovery system that provides warm or cool air depending on the season.
"We all think about ways of saving energy, and saving energy isn't easy. Therefore I wanted to look at what was out there in terms of passive buildings and things which were able to stand above the ground rather than on the ground,” Virdie said.
“The Conker allows us to put enough insulation all the way around it to minimise energy usage inside the Conker to between 500 to 750 watts, so we could run it on solar panels".
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