Sixteen years ago this month, Irish company Kingspan launched the groundbreaking ‘Lighthouse’, which is still a shining example of how to provide affordable and energy-efficient dream homes for all, according to Mark Keenan. Back then, the Design For Manufacture Initiative, spearheaded by former British deputy prime minister John Prescott, was seen as a revolutionary concept. Prescott’s big idea was that cheap housing should be built in a factory, using emerging modern technologies that could provide a decent-sized family home for just £60k, which could be heated for a pittance and have zero carbon emissions. The Lighthouse was built using Kingspan’s revolutionary factory-made TEK system, comprising thick insulation foam boards sandwiched with plywood. The result was a stylish, modern, dazzling and intrinsically elegant two-bedroom terrace home, measuring 1,001 sq ft inside, with an open-plan living arrangement on an upper floor and bedrooms below. The Sixtyk Lighthouse cost only £30 to heat for the year, thanks to a biomass boiler system, a mechanical ventilation system and zero emissions achieved by generating electricity from solar panels. Although only 30% of the homes built under Prescott’s initiative were constructed for under £60k, it proved that old building techniques were outmoded and that innovative and imaginative solutions could make affordable family homes a reality. The Lighthouse is a testament to this, proving that modern Irish affordable housing is not a pipe dream, but can be achieved with industry innovation and imagination and genuine government support. An Irish equivalent of the £60k House competition, such as the €180k House initiative, could transform the Irish housing industry, rethinking everything and building homes to zero carbon emissions and A1 standards in just six weeks. Prescott and Kingspan managed it; so can Ireland.
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