Straw and hemp spend a season pulling carbon out of the air. Put into a wall, they stop letting go.

The walls and the soil are counted together, from the day the first bale arrives.

A policy can be revised. A wall cannot.

Inside, none of this announces itself. Thick walls hold a room still and let it breathe. You are unlikely to notice them working. You will notice that you slept.

The bed is a size larger than king, and it faces the valley. A reading chair deep enough to disappear into. A sliding door that opens the room onto the land. In the morning the light comes before the sound.

Somewhere in the plans are three rooms that welcome you to settle down. One for reading, one for a fire, one for company without conversation. Every other square metre had to justify itself, and those three were exempted on purpose. A hundred and seventy square metres, and none of it on the rate card.