GREEN building design is now influencing house and office developments throughout Notts.

But there are a handful of eco-homes in the city and county which pioneered sustainable design locally and nationally. These include:

Hockerton Housing Project: this nationally-renowned development, near Southwell, was designed by Robert and Brenda Vale and completed in 1998. Built into an earth bank for insulation purposes, the homes claim to be among the most energy-efficient buildings in Europe. The rare sale of a home at the site can create an avalanche of applications. When one home was put on the market recently it attracted 110 enquiries in a week.

The Autonomous House: Robert and Brenda Vale are known the world over to green builders as the authors of The Autonomous House, which became a guide book to the principles of sustainable house design. Their own four-bed autonomous house in Southwell was built in the early 1990s by Nick Martin and was mostly off-grid, the whole design and construction process being documented in a book titled The New Autonomous House. The Vales went on to design the Hockerton Housing Project before emigrating to New Zealand. Martin became a founder member of Hockerton Housing Project.

Penney Poyzer and Gil Schalom's Victorian semi-detached home in West Bridgford: Penney Poyzer has achieved a high profile as a media commentator on green issues. But before TV fame beckoned she and her architect partner Gil Schalom were retrofitting and redesigning their standard Bridgford semi into a showcase for comfortable, ultra-low energy, living. The house continues to evolve as technologies and ideas are dropped or introduced. Gone, for example, is the toilet composting system in the cellar, complete with worms, which often made visitors gawp.

The Lace Maker's House: former Nottingham South MP Alan Simpson's £300,000 airy, spacious home in the Lace Market was converted from a derelict Victorian lace mill by Julian Marsh. Its features include water recycling, solar PV and walls made of recycled straw.