The Nursery, Bellingdon

The Nursery at Bellingdon was the brainchild of Jim Matthews and influential German architect Gernot Minke. Comprising of a 5m high dome, exterior walls of Strocks, hemp-lime insulation

and woodfired brick facing. The whole structure was built on compacted flint foundations and topped with a green roof. Blocks were specially shaped in three sizes to accommodate the change in angle of the dome, one of the qualities of the clay straw mix is its ability to take up most shapes. The dome itself is a big piece of thermal mass as well as part of the load bearing structure of the roof. The outer walls have Strocks to hold the remaining weight of roof which are in turn insulated with hemp-lime blocks with a brick rain screen of the factories wood fired bricks. The whole structure has beautiful clay plaster finishes internally, fair-faced blockwork on the interior of the dome and many factory made ceramic detailed panels. It’s a little gem of a showcase of all that HG Matthews can produce. In addition with a lot of little people running around inside it each day very little is needed to heat the structure which neither overheats or gets cold, storing the heat of the nursery by day and releasing it at night.