Private House in Suffolk by Ström Architects

Following our interview with Ström Architects about the value of photo-realistic visualisations, the firm sent us a set of images by rendering guru Peter Guthrie showing a house proposed for Suffolk, England (+ slideshow).

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

Two miles from the coast in the southern English county of Suffolk, the 2.5 hectare site is located in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and surrounded by farmland.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

British studio Ström Architects designed the house to be built over foundations of a previous structure that burnt down, beside an existing outdoor pool.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

It will be orientated at an angle to the ruins, to make a clear distinction between the two and to face the best views.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

“The building is set like this so that it can be read on its own and thus touch the existing site lightly,” said the architects.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

Flooding is prevalent in the area so the home will be raised 1.5 metres off the ground, with a ramped walkway following the geometry of the old building connecting it to the garden.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

The design is long and thin to reference the local vernacular, with glazing along most of the west elevation. Dark wood panels will cover rest of this facade, while Corten steel is to clad the other three sides.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

All the rooms are on the ground floor apart from the master bedroom and bathroom, which will fit into the small volume on the roof. Construction is due to start later this year.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

The renderings were produced by visualisation artists Peter Guthrie, who is considered one of the leading exponents of photo-realistic architectural imagery. Guthrie is the mentor of UK architect Henry Goss, whose renderings of a proposed house in southern England stunned Dezeen readers earlier this month. Read our interview with Goss.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

Check out Goss’s renderings of another English house by Ström Architects and read the interview in which the studio claims that investing in quality computer generated imagery (CGI) is “more effective than advertising”.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

We recently published an archive of all the most convincing renders on Dezeen, which includes CGIs of a Norwegian hunting lodge, the new National Gallery of Greenland and Renzo Piano’s The Shard in London.

See more hyper-realistic renderings »
See more buildings in Suffolk »
See more architecture and design in England »

More information from Ström Architects follows.


Private House, Suffolk, UK

The site is located in Suffolk two miles inland the coast, and lies within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The site itself forms part of an overall land ownership of 2.5 hectares surrounded by agricultural land.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects
Site plan – click for larger image

The current site has foundations, ruins and some low walls from a house that burned down eight years ago; there is also an existing outdoor pool. Immediately to the west of the pool and ruins, there is a small area of open grass that runs up to the edge of a beautiful copse of mature oak trees. The site is located on the edge of flood zone two and three, and requires a raised floor level 1.5 metres above the old cottage.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects
Ground floor plan – click for larger image

The clients’ brief was for a country house – ‘a dream in a wood’, a peaceful place to relax, regenerate, and think of new ideas. The existing site with the pool, ruins and low walls has a very strong presence, and we wanted to keep this as an important part of the site. The design is linear and has picked up on the building form – the ‘long cottage’ found in the locality, and we see the design as an evolution of the longitudinal cottage.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects
First floor plan – click for larger image

The building sits above the ruins and the edge of the pool, as to respect the current site, but also to deal with the raised floor level that is required, due to the potential flood risk. The building is also set like this so that it can be read on its own, and thus touch the existing site lightly. The building is orientated towards the west-south-west, and sits on an angle above the existing ruins facing the best views as well as creating a clear juxtaposition of geometry to the ruins.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects
West elevation – click for larger image

A two-storey element punctures through the roof, and contains a master bedroom suite at the first floor. This is positioned towards the existing coach house, thus minimising the impact of the building on the more open site to the south. This two storey element is recessed from both the west and east facades as to reduce the scale and the appearance of the building.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects
East elevation – click for larger image

The building is entered via a bridge that spans from higher ground and above the ruins. This sets up the whole philosophy of the house, even before you actually enter, as well as successfully dealing with safe egress form the house to higher land in case of a flood.

The post Private House in Suffolk
by Ström Architects
appeared first on Dezeen.

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects

Here’s another small-scale project featuring strikingly realistic renderings – this time a timber-clad home in England by Ström Architects, who claim that investing in quality CGI is “more effective than advertising” (+ slideshow + interview).

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects

Sited on the edge of the New Forest National Park in Hampshire, Woodpeckers is designed by Ström Architects as a two-storey holiday house with a glazed conservatory and a raised terrace wrapping the south and east elevations.

The structure of the house will comprise a prefabricated timber frame, allowing for a quick construction, while the dimensions have been generated using standard truss components that will help keep the project within budget.

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects

Larch cladding panels will in time give a silvery grey colour to the external walls, plus a bulky brick chimney will create both indoor and outdoor fireplaces.

Architect Magnus Ström commissioned architect and visualiser Henry Goss to create the hyper-realistic renderings, which he also uses as a marketing tool to promote his three-year-old practice.

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects

“It takes three years from inception to completion for a project, but I needed to have these projects on my website sooner and of a quality good enough for publication,” he told Dezeen.

Explaining how he found investment in advertising to be a waste of time, Ström said that presenting high-quality imagery has helped him to win work, earn press coverage and get projects approved for construction.

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects

“Renders definitely help to convey a feeling of what you are trying to achieve. They also help to demonstrate top design quality,” he said.

He added: “I can say with confidence that current projects as well as numerous enquiries, even from abroad, have been linked to high-end visualisations.”

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects

Dezeen recently interviewed Henry Goss about how 3D visualisations are becoming indistinguishable from real photographs. “The addition of real-world imperfections is taking architectural visualisation to the next level,” he said.

Other projects we’ve featured with lifelike visualisations include a prefabricated Scandinavian house and a triangular house in Sweden.

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects

Read the full interview with Magnus Ström:


Amy Frearson: Why do you choose to invest in such highly detailed visualisations?

Magnus Ström: As a new practice, it has been very important to build up a portfolio of work, as as you have to be patient in architecture and I am not. It takes three years from inception to completion for a project, but I needed to have these projects on my website sooner and of a quality good enough for publication.

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects

AF: How did you get started?

MS: When I first set up, I invested in some advertising, and this resulted in absolutely nothing. I then discovered Peter Guthrie, whose renders were the best I had ever seen. I immediately called him and said I wanted to work with him, although I at this stage didn’t have a project! As soon as I had a suitable project, I decided to smash my marketing budget and get him to render my project, which was a private house in Suffolk.

AF: What kind of press response did you have to those images?

MS: It immediately got loads of attention and was featured on several websites and magazines as far away as Australia. This played a big part in me being selected as the UK representative for Wallpapers Emerging Architects 2012, which in turn directly led to the commission of Woodpeckers. I have had an enormous amount of press interest in the project, although many have shied away when they realised it wasn’t built.

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects

AF: Were there any negatives?

MS: The downside is that you show a finished project, which can put you in a difficult situation if [the press] doesn’t like it. However this hasn’t happened for me yet, and hopefully, as your clients select you in the first place, they will like what you do for them.

AF: Do you use the renderings as a design tool or just to present a resolved idea?

MS: I do build SketchUp models of all my projects – in particular to communicate with clients – but renders definitely help to convey a feeling of what you are trying to achieve. They also help to demonstrate top design quality. Since I set up my practice, I have been lucky to get 100% of planning applications approved. I think at times, particularly in sensitive areas, the images have helped to demonstrate the quality aimed for in the design and has successfully helped the planning application.

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects

AF: Would you recommend the approach to other architects starting out?

MS: Overall, I think high quality renders have managed to promote my practice in a way that previously wouldn’t have been possible. This of course needs to be coupled with an on-line presence, whether through Facebook, Twitter, BEhance, Architizer or similar. So I can say with confidence that current projects as well as numerous enquiries, even from abroad, have been linked to high-end visualisations.

Read on for a project description from the architect:


Woodpeckers, New Forest, UK

“Woodpeckers” is a replacement house on a rural site on the edge of the New Forest National Park.

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects

The design for the house, which is to be used mainly as holiday home, is constrained by planning issues that to some extent dictated the built footprint and its position on the site. Very tight size restrictions forced the design to push windows to the outside of the envelope, not allowing any overhangs which would be included in an area calculation, therefore reducing the actual built area. However, within the allowable area, there are provisions for inclusion of a conservatory, and one challenge was how to successfully integrate this with architecture devoid of the normal connotations of a lean-to structure.

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects
Ground floor plan – click for larger image

The very simple building is also driven by economics of construction. The superstructure is a simple timber frame structure that will be pre-fabricated allowing a short erection time on site. Spans as well as the width of the house are decided by the performance restrictions of standard timber truss components. Fenestration is generated by floor to ceiling gaps in the timber façade.

The house sits on a platform that will create a terrace to the south and the east. This platform connects with a masonry chimney breast that provides both internal and external fireplaces. The platform, being raised slightly off the ground, allows a level connection between inside and outside terraces as well as raises the house off the ground, which in the winter months can be quite wet.

Woodpeckers by Ström Architects
First floor plan – click for larger image

The proposed building will be finished in larch cladding that will weather to a slivery grey.

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Ström Architects
appeared first on Dezeen.