Sustainable new-build home built with Kebony façade adorns rugged Welsh coastline

Built into a rugged hillside overlooking the extensive natural coastline in South Wales, a new-build family home with a sustainable vision is now complete. Designed by award-winning architects, Loyn + Co, the home which blends naturally into the verdant landscape and sits beneath towering pine trees, makes extensive use of Kebony, a global leader in the production of sustainable wood, for the home’s façade.

The design brief for the new home was to make the most of the beautiful views, capturing the potential of the sensitive location, in addition to prioritising the contextual importance of the site, topography and existing trees. As keen gardeners, the clients also wanted a house that would be suitable for the warm months and harsher winters. The dwelling is partially cut into the site and organised to not only have wonderful sea views, but arranged so that a central atrium planted with specimen trees provides a winter garden as well as an inspiring circulation space serving each of the three levels and putting nature at the centre of the home.

The family home, which has been cut into the valley side amongst established trees, makes extensive use of Kebony wood, which diverts the need for deforestation by transforming sustainable wood species such as pine into Kebony wood with features that are comparable, and in some cases superior, to those of precious tropical hardwoods.

Following the COP26 climate summit which saw 100 world leaders promise to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, Loyn + Co’s decision to make extensive use of sustainably-sourced Kebony wood for the stunning new-build home reflects the global shift to favour sustainable materials in construction, which will soon become an imperative for architects, homebuilders and real estate developers to rapidly curb the impacts of climate change, including the destruction of trees which depletes forests that absorb vast amounts of CO2.

James Stroud, Director at Loyn + Co Architects, commented: “The new home has been thoughtfully knitted into this complex site to work with the varying levels and existing beautiful trees. The design truly brings the outside in, not only through ‘inside outside spaces’ and visual links through the house to the sea beyond, but through the indoor garden within the central atrium where nature is the focus. Simple measures such as bringing the Kebony cladding in and through the atrium reinforces this concept.”

Nina Landbø, International Sales Manager at Kebony, added – “It’s fantastic to see more and more homes embrace the use of sustainably sourced wood like Kebony, which decreases the logging of precious tropical hardwoods and provides a long-lasting and sustainably-sourced wood alternative to concrete, plastic and steel. The architects, Loyn + Co have created a truly special home in Wales, and one that should set an example for how remarkable homes can be created and benefitted by innovative, environmentally-friendly materials.”