Hasta La Ideas

London architecture studio ShedKM used walls of locally quarried red sandstone to help this concrete house in north-west England fit in with its coastal surroundings (+ slideshow).

Located in an elevated position overlooking an estuary, the Welsh hills and the Irish Sea, Rockmount provides a two-storey home for a family with four children, and features a large garden and an adjoining swimming pool.

“The house aimed to suit a family with progressive views on design, give fantastic views from the living areas and make the most of the topography of the site,” said ShedKM associate Greg Blee.

“In addition, it had to limit its visual impact when viewed from the coastline,” he added.

The house’s upper level stretches west to east, projecting out from the peak of the slope into the garden, while the lower level is slotted underneath and nestles up against the landscape.

Red sandstone walls form the base of the building, referencing the site’s past use as a quarry and functioning as retaining walls to support the tiered levels of the garden.

“Outcrops of red sandstone jut out of the garden in various locations,” said Blee. “This stone became part of the material palette of the new house, as it provided a connection with the local geology.”

The long narrow swimming pool thrusts out from the southern facade, while a garage and master bedroom are contained within a small wing that extends out from the north, giving the house a cross-shaped plan.

A glass bridge connects the master bedroom with the rest of the house, including a large living and dining room with a circular seating area, a piano corner and a surrounding balcony.

Evenly sized children’s bedrooms are arranged in sequence at the eastern end of the floor, and stairs lead down to a playroom and guest bedroom below.

Rockmount was one of five projects nominated for the RIBA Manser Medal 2013 for best new house in the UK, alongside a translucent glass house in London and a contemporary house behind the walls of a ruined castle in Warwickshire.

Photography is by Jack Hobhouse, apart from where otherwise indicated.

Here’s more information from ShedKM:

Rockmount

Rockmount is built in an abandoned quarry at the summit of Caldy Hill, a protected landscape of forest and heathland owned by the National Trust. The house straddles the quarry rock face and at one end projects out from the hillside above the estuary of the River Dee.

Local sandstone walls enclose ground floor spaces, but the majority of the living and sleeping areas are at first floor, taking advantage of the spectacular views. The house has a linear plan, with a more private annexe connected by a glazed bridge.

The glazed, open plan living area, containing kitchen, dining and sunken snug contrasts with a massive concrete chimney sitting alongside the house. Upper and lower levels are linked by a double-height void containing a steel and concrete staircase.

Spaces are arranged to allow long views along two axes, the length and breadth of the house, constantly connecting the user with the surrounding landscape. Walls and level changes merge the geometry of the house with the gardens, which have been left predominantly natural to blend into the Caldy Hill landscape.

The house is uncompromisingly modern and striking in form, yet uses a materials pallet of local stone and black painted timber, both found in the local vernacular. This acts to bed the house successfully into the site and its context.

The post Coastal concrete house on a red
sandstone base by ShedKM appeared first on Dezeen.

Walls of weathered stone and timber surround this gabled family retreat by British studio McLean Quinlan Architects on the Devon coastline in south-west England (+ slideshow).

McLean Quinlan Architects located the building against a slope, in a position that offers views of both the surrounding countryside and the ocean.

Wooden panels clad the long sides of the building, while the gabled ends are constructed from stone and the pitched roof is covered with grey slate.

The architects intended this materials palette to reference the aesthetic of American summer houses. “The clients had in mind initially elements of a New England beach house, and so external materials of green oak boarding were used together with the local stone,” said architect Kate Quinlan.

A protruding stone wall marks the house’s entrance, leading through a heavy wooden door to a “mud room” used for drying wetsuits and storing wet-weather clothing such as overcoats and wellington boots.

An open-plan kitchen, living room and dining area occupies most of the ground level, and includes a children’s play area, a large larder for storing food and a laundry space.

A staircase spans the width of the house, leading up to a first floor containing five bedrooms and three bathrooms – offering plenty of space for guests. A second staircase is hidden amongst the closets, ascending to an attic with two extra bedrooms.

Other waterside holiday homes on Dezeen include a raw concrete summerhouse on a Swedish island, a house clad with seaweed pillows in Denmark and a small wooden house on Scotland’s Isle of Skye. See more holiday homes »

Photography is by Will Scott.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Morthoe House

The house in located a small village on the North Devon Coast. It was built as a holiday home for the family, and designed to maximise the number of bedrooms and open living space.

The site is accessed down a long drive and the building is tucked up against the slope of the site to make the most of the long views down to the sea from the upper levels.

A stone gable end is the first glimpse you get of this building with a dark industrial chimney dark against grey stone.

The clients had in mind initially elements of a New England beach house, and so external materials of green oak boarding was used together with the local stone.

The resulting building is simple in form. A neat pitched volume coupled with a generous entrance porch.

This provides a formal entrance and provides direct access to a large mud room for drying wetsuits wet from days out surfing, and drying out muddy boots from walking the costal paths.

The building is split down the centre by a central stair. On entering the hall opens up to a double height space with views of the garden.

The main living space is open plan, with a separate games space for the kids and the practical necessities of a large larder and laundry.

Up the open tread stairs, on the first floor the spit volumes separate the master bedroom suite from the main bedroom wing.

Here there is a long corridor with a single pane window at the far end leads to 4 double bedrooms.

Half way along is a ‘secret stair, tucked amongst the linen cupboards, which winds up to take you to to two further attic bedrooms above.

The post Mortehoe House by
McLean Quinlan Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Our second project this week from British studio Simon Conder Associates is a timber-clad house built around a nineteenth-century railway carriage on Dungeness beach in Kent, England.

Simon Conder Associates designed El Ray beach house as the summer home for a family, who had previously lived in just the old carriage.

“We were asked by our clients to increase the accommodation area by approximately 50 percent and dramatically improve the environmental performance of the house,” said Simon Conder.

Completed in 2008, the house is located between two other shacks near the Dungeness power station. It features a bell-shaped plan, incorporating a sheltered front terrace and a pair of recessed courtyards that are protected from the prevailing winds.

The railway carriage is contained at the centre of house and accommodates a kitchen within its worn shell. A living room surrounds and opens out to all three terraces.

Different tones give a striped pattern to the hardwood exterior cladding. There are also ramps leading into the house from the surface of the beach.

A flat sloping roof acts as an observation deck with sweeping 360-degree views of the surrounding beach and ocean.

The walls, roof and floor are insulated using recycled newspaper, meaning very little energy is needed for heating, lights and ventilation.

In extremely cold weather, electric heating is powered by a rooftop wind turbine to heat beneath the floorboards in the two bedrooms and bathroom.

Simon Conder more recently completed a pair of timber-clad houses built on a steep hill in the town Porthtowan.

Other seaside houses in the UK include a shingle-clad house elsewhere on Dungeness beach, a small wooden house on the tip of the Isle of Skye and an experimental beach house at Maldon. See more British houses »

Here’s a project description from the architects:

El Ray, Dungeness Beach, Kent

Dungeness beach is a classic example of ‘Non-Plan’ and the houses that populate the beach have developed through improvisation and bodge. This scheme develops this tradition in a way that responds to the drama and harshness of the landscape.

El Ray is part of a group of five beach houses located immediately to the east of the huge Dungeness A power station. The original house consisted of a 19th century railway carriage with flimsy lean tos to the north and south. It was in extremely poor condition and too small to accommodate our clients and their growing family. We were asked by our clients to increase the accommodation area by approximately 50%, and dramatically improve the environmental performance of the house.

The new house incorporates the old railway carriage inside a highly insulated timber structure. The carriage forms the centre point of the main living area and accommodates the kitchen. A fully glazed southern elevation gives views out over the channel and a series of smaller slot windows on the other elevations give focused views of the adjacent lighthouse, coastguard station and nuclear power station.

The sloping roof deck acts as an observation platform with extraordinary 360 degree views of the beach and the sea. The plan incorporates two courtyards to provide shelter from the constant wind.

Environmental Performance

Environmental control is achieved through a combination of super insulation, passive solar gain, cross ventilation and a wind turbine.

The high levels of insulation in the walls, roof and floor ensure that heat loss from the building is minimal and very little energy is required for heating, lighting and ventilation. External glazing consists of a combination of double-glazed, low ‘E’, argon- filled frameless fixed lights and thermally-broken, aluminium sliding doors. The structural timber frame is constructed from lightweight engineered timber I-Joists, braced inside and out with a sheathing material manufactured entirely from wood waste. The insulation between the I-joists and studs is made from recycled newspaper. The external cladding and decking is made from an FSC certified hardwood called Itauba and the internal wall linings, floors and all joinery are constructed from FSC certified birch plywood.

A canopy projects out over the south deck to shade the living areas from the high summer sun, but allows the low winter sun to warm the house. When necessary a wood-burning stove, using drift wood from the beach, is used to supplement the passive solar gain in the winter months and in extremely cold conditions electric under floor heating, powered by the wind turbine, will heat the two bedrooms and the bathroom.

It is anticipated that the during the year the wind turbine will generate more electricity than the house will consume, meaning that the house can be run at carbon negative. The client intends to sell any surplus electricity generated by the wind turbine back to the National Grid.

Architects: Simon Conder Associates
Design Team: Simon Conder, Pippa Smith
Structural Engineer: Fluid Structures
Environmental Engineer: ZEF
Contractor: Ecolibrium Solutions
Construction cost per m2: £1,780.00
Completed: July 2008

The post El Ray at Dungeness Beach
by Simon Conder Associates appeared first on Dezeen.

These hyper-realistic computer renderings show a forthcoming concrete and glass house in Christchurch, England, designed by London-based Henry Goss Architects (+ slideshow).

Henry Goss Architects designed Staithe End for a site adjacent to a listed building and in a conservation area close to Christchurch harbour on England’s south coast, while the images were produced by sister company Goss Visualisations.

The house will sit right up against the listed property and border another building at a slight angle on the other side, so terraces and garden will also be angled to compensate.

An open plan living, dining and kitchen space will occupy the ground floor, leading out to the series of terraces linked by external staircases.

Two of the four bedrooms including the master suite will be located in the basement, across a sunken gravel courtyard from an artist’s studio topped with a green roof.

The other two bedrooms will be on the top floor, along with another living space at the back with a balcony overlooking the harbour and nearby Hengistbury Head Nature Reserve.

This steel-framed upper storey is to be clad with vertical strips of local larch on the street facade and will sit on top of the concrete ground and basement levels. Strips of glazing will separate these floors and the house next door.

“Pretty interesting job, this one, as the chances of it getting planning [permission] were virtually nil due to the historic environment, listed building, coastal flooding etc,” writes architect Henry Goss.” Somehow we got it through by a narrow margin at comity with full endorsement from the local planning authority”.

Construction is due to start later this year and the architects hope to complete the project in Autumn 2014.

More British houses on Dezeen include a contemporary insertion within a ruined twelfth-century castle and a home with a black and white facade designed to mimic tree branches.

See more British houses »
See more architecture and design in England »

The architects sent us this information:

This four bed private house on the banks of Christchurch Harbour represents a real coup and a major precedent for high quality contemporary architecture in the most sensitive of historic environments. Planning approval was gained largely due to the unusually progressive and enlightened planning authority in Christchurch, Dorset who champion all high quality design, contemporary or otherwise.

The dwelling is located in the centre of an important conservation area and adjoined to a listed building, part of which requires demolition to make way for the development. The uncompromising contemporary nature of the design was seen by the LPA as a positive aspect as it seeks to distinguish itself from the listed building thus providing a strong contrast in design that compliments and emphasises the design qualities of each.

Further constraints came in the form of coastal flooding. The solution was to treat the entire site as a tanked excavation including basement, courtyards and terraces which fall below the 4m AOD set by the Environment Agency.

A lightweight steel and glass box floats atop the exposed concrete ground work providing views across the harbour to Hengistbury Head Nature Reserve.

Natural light is brought into all parts of the plan at basement, ground and first floor by careful manipulation of levels and openings down the long narrow site. The result is a development which has an ambiguous relationship between inside and out, between built form and nature.

The post Staithe End by Henry Goss
Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

The facade of this black and white house by British architect Matthew Heywood is sliced up into irregular shapes to mimic the crooked angles of tree branches (+ slideshow).

Matthew Heywood wanted to create an affinity with the surrounding woodland when designing the five-bedroom property, located in a small village in Kent, England.

The architect used slanted columns – known as raking columns – to form the structure of the building, referencing criss-crossing branches and twigs.

“Large expanses of glass fill the gaps between the structure and allow you to appreciate the landscape and setting as if you were peering out from between the trunks and branches of the trees,” explained Heywood.

The residence is clad in a mixture of black-stained and white-painted clapboard, which is commonly found on houses in this part of England. “The weatherboarding represents the foliage wrapping the building and enclosing the spaces within,” Heywood said.

The monochrome colour palette continues inside the house with dark flooring, white walls and furnishings in shades of grey.

The ground floor of the property includes a large reception area with a suspended fireplace and sliding doors that open out onto the garden.

A staircase with a glass balustrade leads to the first floor, which accommodates five bedrooms, three bathrooms and a dressing room.

Matthew Heywood doesn’t just work on buildings – the London-based architect previously tried his hand at redesigning London’s buses.

Other British houses we’ve recently featured include a small wooden house on the Isle of Skye and a house with a mirrored facade that slides across to cover the windows. See all our stories about British houses »

Photography is by Jefferson Smith.

Engineer – Fothergill & Company
Main Contractor – Ecolibrium Solutions

Here’s a description from the architect:

Trish House Yalding

The design of the house developed in direct response to the site and its location within the beautiful village of Yalding in Kent.

The building’s structure is composed to reflect the surrounding woodland with the raking columns representing the irregular angles of tree trunks and branches.

Large expanses of glass fill the gaps between the structure and allow you to appreciate the landscape and setting as if you were peering out from between the trunks and branches of the trees.

The traditional Kentish black and white weatherboarding represents the foliage wrapping the building and enclosing the spaces within. In contrast to the surrounding nature, the form and lines of the house are intentionally very geometric and crisp, creating a dialogue between the organic woodland and the modernist box.

The post Trish House Yalding
by Matthew Heywood appeared first on Dezeen.