A neglected bungalow in a Cotswold village has been transformed into a state-of-the-art, two storey family home built to Passivhaus principles by a Gloucestershire architect.

Jess and Dan Robinson, who run Stroud house-builder Stag Homes, had often walked past the neglected bungalow on walks through their home village of Horsley in Gloucestershire.

And so when it came on the market, the couple - who had fallen in love with its hilltop setting - jumped at the chance to buy it.

They had already sounded out planning officers when they moved into the nine metre-long property a few days before Christmas in 2017, so knew the potential.

But it had snowed heavily, the boiler had broken and mould was growing up the walls. It wasn't the fairytale start they were hoping for.

"You know when you move in somewhere and you're so excited?" says Jess, a building surveyor. "We moved in here, and I sat down and almost cried and said, 'Dan, what have we done?"

Fast-forward 18 months, and Oakfield House now meets what are called Passivhaus principles, standards developed in German which essentially mean that through clever design it heats and cools itself.

Jess and Dan, who is a former Olympic athlete, employed Nailsworth-based Austin Design Works' associate director and Passivhaus designer Emma Taylor to draw up the plans and oversee the project.

She first became interested in the concept when she ran her own architectural practice in London.

The bungalow also uses an MHVR system - Mechanical Heat Ventilation Recovery unit - installed to control the flow of air through the building.

"Having our home built to achieve a high energy standard was hugely important to us, because we do really need to start looking after this world," said Mrs Robinson, who is the managing director of Stag Homes.

"All the locals wanted us to build a Cotswold stone property but if we did that, we'd be digging a quarry, taking all the stone - and we've evolved from that.

"We can have an environmentally-friendly house with great insulation values and airtightness so we rarely need to have the heating on, we're warming rooms up with our body heat. Plus it's timber-clad, which is obviously really renewable.

"I wanted great design and an environmentally-responsible house - and, thanks to Austin Design Works, we've got it."