Why we build in granite, oak and glass, and very little else

Every Velora house is built from more or less the same three materials. This is occasionally read as a house style. It is really an answer to a narrower question: which materials on this coast improve rather than degrade, and can be repaired by someone local in thirty years' time?

Granite, because the ground is granite

The stone in the headland walls came out of the headland. It weathers at the same rate as everything around it, it can be re-laid rather than replaced, and the two yards that still cut it are within twenty miles. A house faced in imported stone looks correct for about a decade and then stops matching its own landscape.

Oak, because it fails visibly

Oak silvers, moves, and tells you what it is doing. That is a considerable virtue in a building material. Composite systems fail invisibly and then all at once, and cannot be repaired by anyone without the original supplier.

Glass, sparingly

The glass is the expensive part and the part most often overdone. We size openings against the shelter available rather than against the view, which is why our western elevations tend to be large and our south-western ones tend not to exist.

• Materials sourced within twenty miles wherever the specification allows
• No composite cladding, on any elevation, on any project
• Every component specified so a local trade can repair it
• A written maintenance schedule handed over with every house