The Seed: Small Projects Winner - Exemplar Sustainable Buildings Awards

In a woodland garden near Dundee, The Seed replaces a derelict building with a co-living home designed around sustainability from the ground up. Almost every element uses low-impact resources, reused and recycled materials, locally sourced Scottish timber, and natural fibre insulation, while meeting Passivhaus Classic and RIBA 2030 embodied carbon targets.

Rather than sending the old house to landfill, most of its components were salvaged for reuse or recycling in the new build. The structure is formed from off-site manufactured timber I-joists, insulated with recycled cellulose and breathable wood fibre, providing both thermal performance and carbon savings.

The house stands on steel screw pile foundations to protect the mature tree roots of the surrounding protected woodland, avoiding the high carbon cost of concrete. External finishes use Scottish-grown timber cladding and decking, with a long-life zinc roof to reduce maintenance and resource use.

Every decision – from the choice of foundations to the last finishing detail – was guided by the aim to reduce embodied and operational carbon, proving that high-performance, low-impact homes can be created almost entirely from reused, recycled, and natural materials.