A classical pavilion

For a hilltop site in Dorset, this is an unexecuted design for a tower pavilion – planned over six stories to provide significant living accommodation, but with the intention of appearing like a fine classical temple-folly in a sweeping landscape.  On the piano nobile is a large, double-height reception room with wide views across the landscape to south, east and west.

The language is that of simple classical Palladian architecture, with strong echoes of William Kent’s Euston Temple, and Worcester Lodge at Badminton; an almost austere, tower-like language chosen for the particular site, which would have revealed significant classical riches within.

A new house in Wiltshire

We have been commissioned to design this replacement dwelling for a substantial parkland site in Wiltshire, in beautiful countryside to the east of Salisbury. An existing small farmhouse sits in an open setting surrounded by sweeping parkland, with fine vistas leading down to a lake and with stands of mature oak trees around.

Our clients were drawn to a mid 18th century Neo-classical language and we developed proposals for a house that was architecturally restrained, but with an elegant, monumental scale. The main house contains six reception rooms and nine bedrooms contained around a top-lit stair hall. Side wings provide additional service accommodation and a large orangery facing east and south.

A Neo-Classical House

This is a Paragraph 80 design for a fine site in South Cambridgeshire. The site has an interesting planning history, with an approved design for a highly contemporary building. Our client had ultimately decided that he would prefer to build a classical house and approached our practice to design a replacement.

Drawing on the neo-classical architectural tradition that finds deep roots in nearby Cambridge, and in the East Anglian work of Sir John Soane and his successors, we developed a plan for a central block with two flanking wings, designed in a restrained and austere language, suitable for the plain and itself austere Cambridgeshire countryside.

Walls are in lime render with natural stone dressings and construction was to be in a highly innovative hemcrete.  The house sits in a regenerative, productive landscape, with large groves of fast-growing coppice woodland which provides fuel for the heating systems.

Initial engagement with South Cambridgeshire planning officers suggested that the council felt that a classical design was not appropriate for the site and the Paragraph 80 route, and our client decided not to proceed further.