Willow Lodge

Contemporary design in a Cotswold village

Willow lodge is a small cottage built in 1908 and sits on the edge of the picturesque village green in Wiltshire. The property is not listed yet sits within a sensitive rural setting in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The house had a large and well kept rear garden but it was somewhat remote from the house – separated by a slightly sunken and dark, north facing patio with a cold and inadequate rear extension in it. The Client’s brief was simply to make the most of a challenging site and they were not afraid of a striking and contemporary design in this sensitive location.

Although the extension is on the north side of the house, the orientation of the openings provides south and east as well as north facing glazing and privacy from a rather overbearing neighbour. The east facing glazing provides a miniature courtyard to the east to take advantage of morning sunshine.

The complex form was made by constructing a series of plywood portal frames which were accurately modelled (and optimised structurally) using a parametric Rhino / Grasshopper model, which was then turned into a cutting pattern file for all the elements to be simply cut out using a CNC router. The pieces were numbered and delivered to site, where they were assembled using low tech screw and glue technology. The extension is clad in standing seam zinc cladding, in a manner which compliments the existing house and minimises the building’s whole life embodied carbon footprint.

Park House  

A contemporary new house using traditional materials.

This new family home is a replacement dwelling in the Greenbelt, replacing an unremarkable series of existing buildings which occupied a prominent corner in the village Conservation area. The challenge was to design a building which responds positively to the village context, respecting the defining characteristics of the village, whilst at the same time creating an uncompromised contemporary piece of architecture, responding positively to its physical and its social context. The proposal retains one small fragment of the existing buildings which was originally a public “Reading Room” built in 1885 “for the use of men and boys of the village”. The design responds to the public realm with a series of steep (50deg) pitched gables with stone copings – familiar forms and materials, but with non-traditional detailing around openings. On the other side it responds to the private gardens with a much more open and transparent façade, connecting the living spaces to the garden and open countryside beyond. The dominant material is the Cotswold stone roof which unifies the whole composition, the glass and metal panels of the private side provide a counterpoint, which emerge subtly in the detailing around the openings, and in the staircase “turret” which provides a lookout from the private interior to the public realm. The house design has comfortably exceeded the requirements of Code for Sustainable Homes (Level 4), primarily through the use of simple passive energy design principles, but will go further still by the use of various active energy technologies.

Middle Stoke

A cantilevered house

This scheme replaced a 1960s house overlooking the Avon Valley at Limpley Stoke. The site is in an exceptionally attractive location but did present a number of challenges – the far reaching views out of the site are almost due North, making it quite difficult to get sunlight to penetrate the plan. The original house was in an unsafe condition, being sited on an unstable slope at the southern edge of the site.

The new house has to sit closer to the Northern boundary of the site, but views out over and down the Avon Valley are made possible by cantilevering the upper storey off a rubble stone base. The upper storey culminates in the master bedroom and bathroom which will have unparalleled views out over the landscape. The garden has been designed to slip over and under the house, with green roofs and covered terraces, embedding the building into the landscape.

The simple rectangular volume of the upper storey is clad in charred timber battens (which were change from the aluminium cladding which was part of the original planning approval.

Structural Engineer: Format Engineers

Landscape design: B:D Landscape / Greenhalgh Landscape Architects

Photography: by fotohaus

Crowe Lane

An innovative house framed of CNC machined timber

The existing bungalow is a very quirky “wriggly tin” building, almost a shack, built around two stone chimneys. The site is also very unusual, being landlocked between neighbours’ gardens with the only access possible via a 1.2m wide footpath. But the site benefits from an open rural outlook with long views down the valley. So the design proposal was driven by the constraints of site and has evolved as a partially prefabricated plywood structure supported on a few masonry elements. It is conceived as a freeform structure providing the shelter required for living in the garden. The architecture is very “un – housy”. All of the components can be carried by hand onto the site and erected by hand. Excavation and material moving is kept to a minimum. The design process involved the extensive use of parametric modelling, with the main structural components then being cut using digital fabrication methods. The result is an undulating roof of plywood cassettes floating like a tree canopy over a series of freeform living spaces, and also includes an upper level and rooftop deck like a treehouse in the garden.

Greenways

A modern single storey house

Greenways is a new single storey house, sited in the large rear garden of an early C20th house in Combe Down, Bath. The four bedroom family house is organised in two wings. These are arranged to create a semi enclosed courtyard to the front of the house and south facing garden to the rear.

Entering the house, one first arrives at spaces associated with the life of the family, living, cooking and dining. These open directly onto the rear garden, clearly visible through a full height glazed wall of sliding doors. The more private bedroom wing is accessed from the centre of the house, via a top lit corridor. Bedroom windows face south into the garden. These are protected from excessive solar gain by a pergola running the length of the house. The house features a ‘green’ flat roof as though lifted from the original lawn. Split face masonry walls echo the mining activities which previously took place below the site.

The School House

A modern home in a converted school

The Victorian village school in the middle of this very sensitive conservation area was converted to residential use and extended in 2000, but the works left a confused and unsatisfactory layout with a dark interior. The challenge was to redesign the house to improve the quality of the internal spaces and make more of the opportunities which the site offered. The large original school room was isolated from the garden and the rest of the house, and this room was also rather too big for a comfortable domestic space. The key was to move the staircase into the old school hall to reduce its overall size and to improve the circulation generally..

The design of the new elements is clear and legible, making extensive use of a pre patinated zinc cladding, and a very large dormer roof on the South facing side to both improve headroom and to bring more light into the building.

Cedar House

A remodelled and extended home in a Conservation Area

The client had purchased a dilapidated 1950s house in a residential street in Bristol, and wanted to transform it into a modern, bright and low energy family home. After discussions about the merits of retaining all, part or none of the existing accommodation, it was decided to leave the front part of the house in tact with a new extension to the rear. The retained section was renovated and included a new slate roof, metal windows and was overclad with insulating render to improve the thermal performance. The rear of the house took on a softer character using western red cedar cladding and contained the new heart of the house; a double height dining space with direct access into the kitchen and a new staircase leading to a first floor gallery.

Sydney Buildings

Modern extension of a listed house

Sydney Buildings is a desirable street on the southern slopes of central Bath. Our client purchased a run-down listed property previously used as student accommodation with the aspiration to return it back into a family home. After careful analysis of the historic value of various aspects of the building fabric, we prepared a scheme that stripped away the modern layers of inappropriate interventions, repaired original features and sensitively introduced new services to make the house fit for modern life. The highlight is the new contemporary double-height bay window in the basement that opens out into the garden providing views across the Kennet and Avon Canal to the city skyline beyond.

The Beacon

A contemporary House in the World Heritage City

This scheme replaces an unremarkable 1930s house on an exceptional site, at the top of a steep south facing, wooded site overlooking the City of Bath. The site is in a special and spectacular location and demands a bold and high-quality scheme to take advantage of the opportunities that it offers.

The proposed new house sits almost exactly on the footprint of the existing house so that the wooded site can be maintained with minimal impact. In the summer the living rooms and the extensive balcony cantilever out into the tree canopies. In the winter the trees still screen the views from the city below towards this sensitive site, but the trees become a veil through which the city lights below can be glimpsed.

A drystone wall plinth forms the base of the building, with lightweight framed elements cantilevering off this base and reaching out into the tree canopies, and towards the sun and the views. The context of the site is more wooded hillside than any nearby buildings, so the base of the building references the predominant local building material, translating it from the urban ashlar walling of the nearby terraces, into the more naturalistic rubble walling, and the dark grey fibre cement cladding, partly overclad with cedar battens to reference the woods – predominantly dark and shady, with vertical timber elements.

Squash House

Contemporary remodelling of a family home

The existing house was developed within the walls of a former squash club in 2002. This initial conversion failed to make the most of the original building and the client’s brief was to remedy this to provide an environment to suit modern family living. The design inverts the internal accommodation to provide connected living spaces with direct access onto the private external courtyards. New glazed doors slide back into the walls making full-width openings that link the internal and external areas. Bedrooms are relocated to the upper floor behind new clerestory windows with views over Bath. A new open-tread oak staircase connects the three floors and forms the back-bone to the reinvented house.

The existing house was developed within the walls of a former squash club in 2002. This initial conversion failed to make the most of the original building and the client’s brief was to remedy this to provide an environment to suit modern family living. The design inverts the internal accommodation to provide connected living spaces with direct access onto the private external courtyards. New glazed doors slide back into the walls making full-width openings that link the internal and external areas. Bedrooms are relocated to the upper floor behind new clerestory windows with views over Bath. A new open-tread oak staircase connects the three floors and forms the back-bone to the reinvented house.