Make Architects have designed a futuristic underground carbon neutral home for Manchester United’s tash-sporting Gary Neville. That’s right, you can take it to the bank, I ain’t having you on. The lad from Bury, who looks like he’d be more at home eating a black pudding in some dive of a pub off The Rock, is to live in an amazing single-level home with expansive views of the surrounding countryside and its assorted wonders. The kitchen will be the focus of the spanking new home, surrounded by several petal-shaped wings bearing names such as eat, relax, entertain, work, sleep and play.

The house is designed to exist in harmony with the surrounding meadows and hillsides and its orientation was a big consideration. The green home reflects the footballer’s belief in a system-friendly lifestyle. Neville is originally from the Bury area and it is a place he obviously feels very much part of. Construction materials will be locally obtained, and the home constructed using traditional methods. Power will all come from natural, renewable sources; photovoltaic panels and a wind turbine will combine with a ground source heat pump for heat and light and whatever else mad crazy football geezers need out there on the edge of Watership Down or Wuthering Heights, or wherever the heck you fancy.

The green house will merge with local topography, disappearing into the hillside and “enabling the surrounding moorland to seamlessly flow across the roof,” according to Make Architects. At night the home will be visible as a radial-symmetric natural shape not unlike an elaborate crop circle or a megalithic structure. Descriptions of the Neville eco-home have ranged from “a Teletubby house” to Skara Brae neolithic underground settlement in Orkney – which of course the architects insist was their inspiration – nothing to do with Tellytubbies, whatsoever…hm-keh, ok, hmm, ok…hm-kecgh, *cough* all-righty, then!