Two of the best.
The Elements:
The home focuses on accommodating a number of guests, providing an experience of a ‘home-from- home’. As such the client’s brief included leisure facilities such as a games room, gym, tennis court and indoor swimming pool.
The project consists of three wings comprising of the entrance/dining spaces, living and leisure at ground floor. These wings divide the site into zoned landscape areas with each space having multi-aspect outlooks. In particular, the pool overlooks the morning leisure garden and suntrap courtyard with glazing used extensively to blur the threshold between inside and outside.
The internal nature provides the opportunity for the pool to be used all year around, but the large sliding glazing can open up directly to the gardens in fairer weather.
Throughout the project a light tile floor finish is used both internally and externally to exaggerate this further. This finish seamlessly continues into the pool, the water reflecting the bright surfaces surrounding it.
The design also focuses on sustainability, incorporating a ground-source heat pump to primarily heat the house and the pool, with solar panels providing an additional source.
Black House:
The Black House rectangular massing divides the house into blocks by key site axes, informed by a view from the pool to a large populus tree, and a continuation of a previous path to the site. As such each block is linked to a distinct aspect of the surrounding garden and internal courtyard, the drawing room fronting onto the pool area to the west linking the functions of rest and play.
The axes informs an elevated path leading from the house to the pool, continuing and stretching the hovering nature of the building out into the landscape. This meets the pool area and continues to an existing summer house, linking elements in the wider landscape back to the main house. Planting in the landscape zones the space, creating some privacy to hide the pool from surrounding views.