Thatch the way to do it

WARM in winter, cool in summer and using renewable materials as roofing, the thatched cottage was environmentally-friendly before the term was ever dreamt of.

Nowadays, there’s an emphasis on green architecture as a means of saving energy, but thatched buildings have been doing just that for thousands of years — and not a word about it.

Many ideas about green buildings are coming from Germany or Scandanavian countries and are being adapted to house plans here. However, we could learn a great deal by just looking at the ever-declining number of thatched houses.