The Woodland House

Designed as a dual-purpose book, The Woodland House is both a volume for the armchair enthusiast and an inspirational guide for those wishing to build a similar structure. Beautifully illustrated with more than 100 color photos, this step-by-step guide shows how Ben built his home, hewn from his own woodland, for under US$45,000. It covers the basics of self-building and gives full details of the evolving design process, the identifying of materials, costs, project management, and the actual building stages, from foundations and frames, through to interior features. Includes a seven-year update detailing the extension of the house, natural insulation trials, and round-wood engineering calculations.

The building of Ben’s house was filmed for the Grand Design television series and has proved to be the most popular program of the series. He has also been featured on the Discovery Channel and Home & Garden Network’s The World’s Most Extreme Homes. Biography Ben Law trains apprentices and runs courses on sustainable woodland management, roundwood timber framing, coppice crafts, and permaculture design. He was a founding member of the Forest Stewardship Council. He also has worked for Oxfam as a permaculture consultant. He is the author of The Woodland Way: A Permaculture Approach to Sustainable Woodland Management and The Woodland House. He lives in West Sussex, UK. Law’s woodland house has been featured on The World’s Greenest Homes, a series of the Discovery Channel’s Planet Green.

Author Biography

Ben Law has always had a passion for healthy, biodiverse farms and woodlands. Having gained an Advanced National Certificate in Agriculture, Ben became a shepherd and set up a conservation landscaping business, specialising in ponds and wild flower meadows. Bens appearance on Channel 4’s Grand Designs is the most watched in the series history, is the hosts and publics favourite episode and was one of the 25 programmes chosen to represent Channel 4’s 25th anniversary. Ben visited the Amazon in the late 1980s looking for positive solutions to deforestation and on his return set up and directed the charity, The Forest Management Foundation, working primarily with community forestry in Papua New Guinea. He has also worked for Oxfam as a permaculture consultant.Ben was a founding member of the Forest Stewardship Council and has lived and worked at Prickly Nut Woods in West Sussex, UK, since 1991; training apprentices and running courses on sustainable woodland management, eco-building and permaculture design. He runs a specialist eco-building company, The Roundwood Timber Framing Company Limited.