Building a Low Impact Roundhouse, 4th Edition

Publisher: Permanent Publications

In Building a Low Impact Roundhouse, Tony shares his many years of experience, skills, and techniques used to build this unique and affordable low-impact home. Always witty and inspiring, the author explains the process of visualizing and designing a house through to the practical side of lifting the living roof, infilling the walls, laying out rooms, and adding renewable, autonomous technology.

Building a Low Impact Roundhouse has become a classic text sold all over the world. Tony’s home and lifestyle have attracted much media interest, and he and his partner continue to inspire many individuals and communities to seek out ways of living more sustainably.

Now in its fourth edition, with a fascinating ten-year update including a major new section on the couple’s marvelous straw bale den, Tony also includes sections on the physical design, and he writes about the lifestyle required for living in a roundhouse. He offers advice on roofs, floors, walls, compost toilets, wood stoves, kitchens, windows, and planning permission. There are additional photographs of life in and around the dwelling and illustrations from the construction plans for one of the UK’s most unique homes.

This true and captivating story covers the realizing of a lifetime’s dream as well as being a practical “how to” manual for anyone who loves the idea of low-impact living and wants to self-build an affordable, organic home.

Reviews and Praise

  • "Tony Wrench's book is practical yet unfussy, written with humour and full of valuable information with lots of photographs and illustrations. He tells the story of the building very well. It is very inspiring to read because it changes your perspective on what is possible."—Martin Holme, Permaculture Magazine


More Reviews and Praise


  • "This book is a description of the fascinating process that would lead through the design of the structure, the detailing, the construction and the fitting out. It is not a technical treatise in any sense, though the basic sketches could be used to build a similar structure. There are many good photos to back up the text, and they give a better sense of scale than the line illustrations. The book is well written with a good deal of wit and logical explanation, by a permie who is obviously in tune with living sustainably and willing to eschew much of the baggage we take for granted, but is still able to live simply and luxuriously. Highly recommended."—Micheal Guerra, author of Compact Living

  • "The amount of extremely useful and inspirational information presented here is vast, breathtaking in fact. This is the book I have waited to see for a long time, it is, in short, invaluable. My recommendation is never to think about a seasonal festival again without at least looking at this book and seeing what advice it has to offer."—Robin Whitlock, Awen magazine



About The Author


About Tony Wrench

In 1993, Tony Wrench developed the concept of “permaculture land”, a low-impact sustainable way of life that included self-building with local materials, appropriate technology, and food growing. In 1997, he and his partner built and moved into a low-impact roundhouse.

Books By Tony Wrench

Pages:160 pages
Book Art:Full-color illustrations throughout
Size: 8 x 6 inch
Publisher:Permanent Publications
US Pub. Date: July 25, 2014
Paperback: 9781856231749

Available In/Retail Price

Paperback, 160 pages, $14.95USD