A Marine Villa

This is a design for a highly contemporary seaside villa on an astonishing site on the South coast, in the New Forest.

Under construction in 2023-4, the building is conceived as a simple, timber-framed, single storey pavilion, which has a very simple plan form designed to take advantage of amazing views over the Solent. The underlying plan and elevations have a powerful classical proportioning system.  Walls are clad in oak shingle and to the rear of the house is a brick-walled garden courtyard to provide warmth and shelter against coastal breezes.

Our initial design for the site is shown below.  Originally, our clients wanted a classical building, and we designed a carefully-considered Marine Villa based on an extremely authentic study of John Nash’s Italianate villas, with particular reference to Cronkhill, on the Attingham Estate, now owned by the National Trust.  After a period of real reflection, the owners decided they wanted to live in a much more contemporary building and we were thrilled that they trusted us with the design of the second proposal for the site.

The former house on the site was a 1930s seaside bungalow and we worked closely with planning officers in the National Park in designing both iterations of the building.

A Scottish Farmhouse

For a large estate in the Highlands of Scotland, this is a new family house designed by our senior design director, Rupert Cunningham.

The house was designed to be built to a budget, but has a great sense of scale and underlying elegance to its simple, Georgian vernacular form. Double hung sash windows with simple stone surrounds and softly lime harled walls sit beautifully within an entirely natural landscape.  Drawing closely on traditional forms, the main accommodation is contained under a simple hipped-roof building, with a two storey service wing to the side.

This a simple and classic building that demonstrates the power of good design in elevating the ordinary to something beautiful and special.

Now constructed, these images show our design intention through CGI rendering, which we use on many of our projects to perfect design and detailing and to demonstrate to owners exactly how their house will look and feel upon completion.

A house in New Zealand

This is a design for a new house in Christchurch, New Zealand.  Under construction in 2023-24, the house draws carefully on the brief of the young family who are our clients, who have a very strong interest in classical architecture and design.

We worked very closely with them over several months during the pandemic – with regular video-conferencing to share ideas and development – proving that it is absolutely possible to design a perfect house remotely, if needs be. Construction starts in the spring of 2023 and we hope that upon completion this will be one of the finest new homes to be built in the fine city of Christchurch.

We have gone on to work on a large number of masterplanning projects for the same client, who owns an innovative, highly design-focused development company, Brooksfield, that is helping to rebuild Christchurch after the earthquake damage of 2011.