South Lodge – Windley
When a previous client brought a new house with a rather large garden, they asked Simon Foote Architects if there was scope to create a new home within the grounds. The site is located within open countryside and is also within a designated special landscape area, so a successful application will need to take these constraints into account.
The garden banks up towards the North, where it meets a mature woodland along the rear boundary. The sloping nature of the site makes it difficult to place and design a more standard house type, due to the groundwork involved and the retaining walls/ structures needed to sure up the slope. The costs would be excessive and would result in the project not being viable.
The special landscape area designation also requires any new building to respect the landscape and minimise its impact upon it. Therefore, a minimal dig approach needed to be explored.
The initial idea was to have a minimal and as small as possible foundation which would not scar the landscape. This soon then evolved to assessing using columns that a house could then simply sit on. We have used this when dealing with flood-risk areas. This approach then quickly moved on to reducing the number of columns and how best to engineer a structure that could support the whole dwelling. The final concept is quite simple and consists of two overlapping cuboids which are propped by a minimum number of stilts. Overlapping the two blocks also allowed us to emphasise the views from the upper level whilst allowing the building to float above the banked site.
KISS – Keep it simple, stupid
The landscape is the key feature of the house which is evident as you approach through the winding roadway and park under the lower cuboids cantilever. We are really pleased with the juxtaposition the house has within the landscape. The application was approved in March 2023 with work starting on site sometime in 2024.
