RSPB Lake Vyrnwy
Ty Llwyd Organic Farm

Six short-stay pods and shared facilities for RSPB Lake Vyrnwy

Location Lake Vyrnwy, Powys, Wales

Client RSPB Lake Vyrnwy / Ty Llwyd Organic Farm

Status Submitted for planning — May 2026

Overview

A cluster of six low-impact pods and shared amenities for the volunteers, researchers who help run the largest organic farm in Wales. Set on rising land above Lake Vyrnwy, the scheme has been designed to Passive House principles, aims to be zero carbon in use, utilising materials already available on the estate.

Rebecca Richardson, RRA, ran workshops with the RSPB conservation, farm and maintenance teams, and interviewed past volunteers — from those staying a fortnight to lamb to those staying a year on peatland restoration. The result is a small cluster of private pods gathered around a shared kitchen and garden, with the working details of muddy boots, wet waterproofs and long days outdoors built into every plan.

A continuation of the site's history

In the 1880s, the construction of Lake Vyrnwy Dam — the first large masonry dam in Britain, built to supply drinking water to Liverpool — required a temporary settlement to house the workforce. Labourers, masons and engineers lived in timber huts on the land around what is now Ty Llwyd Farm, before the valley below was flooded to form the reservoir.

A century and a half later, the dam is part of the landscape, the reservoir is an RSPB nature reserve, and the farm above it is run as a working organic estate — supporting peatland restoration, native woodland regeneration and traditional Welsh Black cattle and Welsh Mountain sheep.

The new pods are a deliberate echo of that earlier moment. Modest, timber-clad, temporary buildings housing the people doing the present-day work of stewardship — a quiet synergy between the workers who built the infrastructure of conservation in the nineteenth century, and the volunteers continuing it today.

To preserve that lightness on the land, each pod has been designed as demountable, raised on stilts, and sit on concrete-free foundations — they can be lifted away in the future, leaving no trace.

The pods

Each pod is 17 m² of single-occupancy accommodation, with low-pitched wildflower grass roofs that settle the buildings into the hillside.

The plan is organised around the realities of outdoor work. A covered, sheltered north-facing entrance allows occupants to remove muddy boots and waterproofs before stepping inside, with hanging space, a bench and a compact en-suite shower room directly off the threshold. The main living space is a single, flexible room — single bed, kitchenette with kettle and small fridge, writing desk, reading chair, shelving — opening south through generous glazing onto a private timber verandah with views toward the lake.

Each pod also has secure external storage for bicycles and outdoor equipment.

The pods are arranged in a linear, co-housing pattern that draws on the geometry of traditional Welsh farm buildings — vehicles kept at the perimeter, a shared central garden in the middle, a wildlife pond at the lower edge of the site.

Two further pods provide the shared kitchen and dining space (twin fridge-freezers, two ovens, pantry, recycling and a long communal table) and the laundry and drying room (industrial-grade machines, drying rails, boot and coat storage), both designed for the rhythms of a working farm.

Materials

A circular, on-site approach to material sourcing has shaped every layer of the build-up.

Local timber. Trees felled across the estate during Storm Darragh are being milled on site and used for the structure and external cladding of the pods.
Raw sheep's wool. Wool from the farm's own Welsh Mountain flock will form the drainage layer beneath the wildflower green roofs — eliminating the plastic drainage mats typically used in green roof construction.
Natural, UK-grown insulation. Agri-based insulation (hemp / wood fibre / wool) grown and manufactured within the United Kingdom, keeping embodied carbon and supply chains short.
Concrete-free foundations. Timber piles and pads, allowing the soil and root systems beneath each pod to remain undisturbed.
Galvanised steel rainwater goods. Robust, recyclable and maintenance-free.

Sustainability

The scheme has been designed to Passive House principles.

Orientation, deep eaves, high-performance natural insulation and the thermal mass of the grass roofs combine to keep the pods warm in winter and comfortable in summer without active cooling.

A scheme built from its place

Storm-fallen timber from the valley. Wool from the farm's own sheep. A footprint that touches the ground as lightly as the workers' huts that once stood here. A small architecture of stewardship — built by, for, and from the landscape it serves.