The Roundhouse Classroom
Upon visiting Meadow Orchard for the first time, you cannot fail to notice our rather splendid Roundhouse! Built in the early days of MOP with most of the building work carried out between 2011-2013.
Initial Concepts
These are some images of the initial design concept for the classroom building at Meadow Orchard Project. An ‘L’ shaped structure consisting of a classroom building, and an adjoining covered workshop area. The final design chosen was a more traditional roundhouse concept, with a free standing cob oven, separate from the building structure.
The Final Design
We recently received these architectural detail drawings from the MOP archive. They are rather fascinating. These drawings are great to peruse for those interested in eco build and low impact architecture. The roundhouse is largely built from reclaimed and salvaged materials. Half of the walls are built in cob with a clay render. The other half are in straw bale with a lime render. A footing or aggregate (crushed concrete), cob and bale standing on a couple of courses of rammed earth car tyres.
The building as it stands today sadly doesn’t have (yet) the insulation, wood-burner, or shingle roof as per these drawings. It is still rather splendid though somewhat nippy! We are exploring potential heating and insulation solutions. Our goal is to ensure community engagement through the colder months. This would enable the roundhouse to be a fantastic community asset all year around.
The roundhouse is available for community use. The building can accommodate small yoga groups of eight in size. For events, music, and spoken word, the roundhouse can accommodate about twenty five people. They can be seated on benches and on cushions on the floor. Small rechargeable battery lanterns are available to provide ambient lighting, with plans in place for a 12v lighting installation.
Meadow Orchard Project 
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