Hasta La Ideas

This extension to a mill-keeper’s house on the Norfolk Broads by London studio Acme has been awarded the RIBA Manser Medal 2010 for the best new house in the UK.

Called Hunsett Mill, the project involved extending the existing mill house by adding several volumes with pitched roofs uncurling from behind the original structure.

These volumes are hidden behind the original brick building from specific viewpoints.

The new part of the building is clad in black charred timber.

Photographs are by Cristobal Palma.

The following information is from the RIBA:

Hunsett Mill is a very specific response to a very specific space: an arcadian setting on the Norfolk Broads. The windmill and its out-buildings appear on jigsaws, postcards and chocolate boxes as a famous view from narrow boats. The new building is conceived as a shadow sitting within the site lines of the retained cottage so that the new building is invisible from that specific viewpoint.

The new building is clad in black, charred timber so that it is truly a shadow, with flush glazing that add to the sense of insubstantiality. The overall impact is very arresting – more akin to the response to a piece of art than to a piece of rural, domestic architecture.

The judges enjoyed the constant inventiveness of Acme’s approach seeking new materials, using intriguing structural forms to create interesting forms, values and visual effects. The building is used as a weekend/holiday home by a number of families based in London and Hertfordshire. This allows the interiors to continue the inventiveness and drama of the exterior forms without too many domestic constraints.

The roof forms are particularly enjoyable, creating a series of linked gables that are asymmetric but rhythmic. Internally the structural timber slab is open to the rooms but further changes of angle are added to create a series of interesting spaces, with the first floor walkway to the bedrooms particularly special. The whole is consistently detailed and well crafted with interesting use of off-site construction.

Overall the restoration of the cottage and the new building, which are linked internally, is an exciting and intellectually stimulating response to the unique rural setting. A cultured client has given free reign to the innovation of his chosen architects Acme and engineers Adams Kara Taylor.

Hunsett Mill proves that good architecture can be delivered on a budget and that it can be achieved in the most restrictive of situations. The resulting project balances value and quality and is one that many people could aspire to.

Hunsett Mill on the Norfolk Broads by Acme architects has scooped the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) prestigious Manser Medal 2010 for the best new house or major extension in the UK in association with HSBC Private Bank. The presentation of the award took place at a ceremony at the RIBA last night, at which the winner received an increased prize of £10,000 and a new specially commissioned trophy designed by artist Petr Wiegl from presenter, designer, author and host Kevin McCloud.

Acme architects has won the award for its arresting extension to Hunsett Mill, a nineteenth century Grade 2 listed mill keepers house on the Norfolk Broads. Building a major extension that more than doubled the size of the original house on a uniquely picturesque site was challenging. Acme created an extension in the form of a shadow of the original house, which the judges describe as “more akin to a piece of art than a piece of rural, domestic architecture.”

Speaking about the winning building Ruth Reed, President of the RIBA said:

“Hunsett Mill, like a lot of really good architecture, results from one simple, strong idea. Instead of creating either a pastiche of the Victorian red-brick cottage, or a self-effacing glass box, the architects’ truly inventive solution was to create a kind of triple-shadow of the original, in black charred timber, crossed by the shadow of the neighbouring windmill’s arms.

“A private house commission gives the architect an opportunity to get inside the ambitions of the client and produce a shared personal statement. It is a building type in which every detail matters and in which they matter to client and architect in equal measure. Houses like Hunsett Mill do not get built without the extraordinary faith in and commitment to the architects by their clients. The RIBA is grateful to HSBC Private Bank for its strong support of this award.”

Declan Sheehan, Chief Executive Officer of HSBC Private Bank, said:

“Private homebuilding and redevelopment is becoming increasingly popular with owners expecting more from their homes. Developing your own property means that particular expectations and potentially more difficult requirements can be met, as Hunsett Mill brilliantly demonstrates. As a bank that offers unrivalled property expertise for private clients, we are delighted to support an award that recognises superb design and innovation.”

The five other shortlisted houses were:

• Bateman’s Row, London by Theis and Khan
• Furzey Hall Farm, Gloucestershire by Waugh Thisleton Architects
• Leaf House, London by James Gorst Architects
• Martello Tower Y, Suffolk by Piercy Conner Architects with Billings Jackson Industrial Design
• Zero Carbon House, Birmingham by John Christophers

Previous winners of the RIBA Manser Medal include Pitman Tozer Architects for The Gap House (2009), Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners for Oxley Woods (2008) and Alison Brooks Architects for the Salt House (2007).

Judges for this year’s award were: past RIBA President Michael Manser CBE; HSBC Private Bank’s property expert Peter Mackie, Managing Director of its Property Vision subsidiary; architects Luke Tozer from Pitman Tozer and Deborah Saunt from DSDHA; and the RIBA’s Head of Awards, Tony Chapman.

Architect: Acme
Client: Confidential
Contractor: Willow Builders
Structural Engineer: AKT
Services Engineer: Hoare Lea
Gross internal area: 215 sq m

See also:

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Extension to a house in Tasmania	Extension to a house in Australia	Extension to a house in Los Angeles

English architect John Glew has introduced new fenestration and a zinc-clad extension to this mock-Georgian house in north London, squeezing the new structure into a wedge of land between the house and its neighbour.

The tapered extension comprises a sitting room and pantry on the ground floor, and bedroom with a bath on the first.

51A Gloucester Crescent’s existing windows have been replaced with frames to match those of the new extension, while the existing facade will eventually be rendered a milky grey.

The extension’s interior has white plaster walls with brass light fittings, and oak skirting boards, picture rails and window reveals.

All photographs are by John Glew & Iris Argyropoulou.

Here’s some more from the architect:

51a Gloucester Cresecent London Nw1
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This addition and remodelling to a 1950s developer’s cottage comprises a two-storey timber-framed extension clad in silver-blue anodised zinc and new, vertically emphasised timber fenestration to the existing house.

We have sought to replace the pretence of a mock-Georgian building with a more credible plainness in order to create a new whole, in the process posing questions above and beyond the client brief; when adjusting or adding to a house of this kind how does one design and address what is appropriate to the ambition and discipline of architecture?

On the cladding of the extension, vertically banded standing seams rising 25mm beyond the building’s face create a secondary, fragile plane, effecting a thin, drawing-like tautness, as though the façade had been traced rather than constructed.

On the existing building –its new windows with their retained stucco frames close to the external brick face– the wall reads more as a surface than a solid mass, rhyming with the fenestration of the extension and reinforcing the effect of one impossibly thin surface over two very separate buildings.

Combined with the blue zinc cladding, the cinnamon-like ginger-brown paint on the new windows evokes a changing illusion of space through the optics of colour –either a flatness or a depth depending on lighting conditions and place of viewing.

An oversized window to the small new downstairs sitting room sits in a thin wall, while above, the smaller scaled-down window sits in a thick wall, forming an asymmetric bay –or bookend– which visually props up the old house. The brickwork of the existing house will eventually be washed with a milky Danish limestone render, intended, like the new fenestration, to complete the effect of a seamless new whole.

Inside, the reconfigured plan has created three additional rooms –a sitting room, a pantry and a bedroom with a bath. The plan form of the new extension has been determined by party wall negotiations and the need to accommodate the length of a double bed, the irregular site geometry creating a distorted and exaggerated horizontal and vertical internal perspective, acknowledged in the design.

The existing interior is transformed by restrained additions and seemingly simple interventions to the existing fabric: new vertically emphasised windows allow more light into the previously dark interior, opening up views to the front and back gardens and beyond, while throughout, brass light fittings and grey zinc-plated ironmongery provide a series of faint dotted elements placed strategically on the plain wall surfaces.

In the new sitting room and bedroom, powdery white plaster walls are bound by oak tri-ply window reveals and tall oak skirting and picture rails which project a mere 3mm beyond the walls. Like the zinc seams on the outside, the end grain of the oak tri-ply looks almost drawn on, a secondary two-dimensional frame around the windows and doors. The insubstantial colour of the plaster enhances the overall impression of fragility.

Click above for larger image

While materials and detailing are consistent throughout, each new room has its own very particular qualities. In the sitting room the low-cilled, over-scaled window frames a view which resembles a traditional Japanese raked garden. In the bedroom, the base of a white enamel bath is sunk into a timber box while its curved rim rests on the lift-up top whose thin, rounded, articulated edges bely its weight and bulk.

Click above for larger image

An unlined rooflight appears to hover just below the curved ridge of the sheet-like ceiling. The sparse aesthetic of the new rooms aims to achieve a calm but intense simplicity. Tempering the facade’s deliberate artifice, restraint is exercised throughout to calibrate the perception of spaces and to ensure that detail is always in support of the whole. Another potent characteristic of this project is the way in which the spaces described cannot be absorbed at once. The transformed exterior is unashamedly new but at the same time the building is a background, its composure and the ambition of its sophistication alluding to but never aping the crescent whose elegant characteristics surround it.

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Gallery extension by 6A Architects	Matilde House by Ailtireacht Architects	Key projects by Peter Zumthor

DIY biology inspires algae-based design

This year the clear movement at the London Design Festival was design concepts derived from biology. With a push by the Global Color Research, London’s premier color and trend forecasting agency, “Botanics” has made it’s way onto the design scene, defined as a vibrant celebration of natural color, well-being and references to organic forms in design and architecture.

Designer and materiologist Marin Sawa perfectly illustrates the practice of the nature-derived theme with her Algaerium projects that explores color creation through the chain reaction produced by algae and light. Using her home biology lab, Sawa practices techniques she’s learned from molecular gastronomy chefs to engineer her own custom species of algae. Working with the bacteria allows her to create living surfaces and textiles by cultivating and producing green energy.

The photosynthetic metabolism produces a unique color system that responds and evolves to natural surroundings, resulting in a range of striking greens to bioluminescent algae.

Sawa’s intricate work shows a deep and complex approach towards creative green design. Her soft structure forms are currently available, and she will soon be launching mini-necklaces produced by this photosynthetic method. For inquires about products contact Marin directly at her site.

The pet project of paint company Dulux, Let’s Colour is an international outreach project in which volunteers travel to drab and dreary corners of the world and enliven them with a fresh coat of paint. “Color your world” is the tagline for the program that hopes to transform communities by the brushstroke.

This year the Let’s Colour crew has travelled to London, Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Jodhpur to find and help neighborhoods paint themselves anew. They hope to expand to other countries, including Turkey, throughout the year.

In an interview with CH, Fernanda Romano—Global Creative Director of Marketing at Euro RSCG—talked about Let’s Colour. Says Romano, the idea behind it was: “let’s find locations, places around the world, they’re a bit dull, a bit grey. Let’s engage the local community.” She adds, encouraging community involvement was crucial to succeed: “Mandating things to people feels a bit old fashioned. People want to collaborate, people create content to share with the world.”

The project turned into something more than a P.R. campaign for Romano and her team. “We really wanted to get people excited about painting and color. We really wanted to get people excited about the effect color has on you. it was about a spiritual, emotional regeneration.”

When Dulux, a subsidiary of AkzoNobel, approached Romano, they brought a video of employees painting houses in Brazil that had sparked the original concept. The company approached countries where the company has a big presence about participating in the project and found enthusiasm from the local communities.

Romano found the response hopeful: “It was quite touching to see how much the community appreciated what was happening and how much they saw the benefit.”

The Let’s Colour blog documents all the locales, as well as their color choices and inspiration in each neighborhood. The project also has filmmaker Adam Berg filming the entire process. The individual video for the four places is online, and Berg has plans to release a full video of the project in the next month.

Says Fernanda, “by showing it and being it rather than telling people to do it, it’s a truer way to invite people to bring color into their own home.”

Barely a few weeks into launching, Reverend Berriman’s Heavenly Unorthodox Beverages’ chili-infused sodas (not to mention the company’s tongue-in-cheek marketing strategy) have already made global waves.

To start, John Berriman who founded the Cornwall, England-based company, is indeed a reverend. As the story goes, “divine inspiration” struck Berriman one evening as he pondered the results of infusing his homemade cola with freshly-picked chili peppers. After a year of product development, the final result is a soft drink imbued with the heat of chilis without the flavor, imparting a subtle “glow” in the back of the throat.

In addition to a cleverly understated logo (note the collar) and packaging by the U.K.-based firm Lowestudio, the company’s marketing team consists (no kidding!) of a Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul—further proof that the Powers That Be support a good side business. And, a portion of the proceeds go to charitable organizations like the
Turnaround Project.

Currently available in Cola (regular and Diet), as well as Sparkling Apple flavors, Reverend Berriman’s Heavenly Unorthodox Beverages sell at small grocers and gourmet shops throughout England. The company also offers flavorful “mocktail” alternatives to mixed-alcohol drinks on their site.

While Reverend Berriman’s spicy sweet beverages currently are only distributed in the U.K., they continue to gain attention for their innovative recipes. The sodas sell for £1.20 a bottle or £13 for a 12-pack from their online store.