New Build Family House

The concept for this backland house, completed in Spring 2014, began with a 100 year old pear tree, a remnant of the site’s history as a Victorian fruit orchard. The house has been built around this tree, creating an internal courtyard that brings light and air to the centre of the plan, while turning the house inward to remain private from the surrounding terraced houses.

The building has a structural diagram of concrete external walls to the ground floor, where the walls meet the ground and are exposed to the weathering of nature and occupants, to provide a robust finish. The first floor is constructed as a single storey timber framed box spanning these walls, with two central concrete staircores to provide lateral stability and create dramatic, naturally lit spaces from the rooflights above.

We wanted to preserve the character of the site and evoke its history through the building, which has been designed to blend into its wooded backland context. To this end there is a simple aesthetic concept to emphasis the vertical articulation of the building, with elevations composed of vertical elements and views through the building defined by slender vertical elements which echo the experience of looking through trees.

The ground floor walls are cast in concrete with vertical timber formwork, giving a vertical panelling effect with an expressive natural grain and texture that blends into the surroundings. The locally sourced larch formwork was carefully chosen to give a relief that was prominent but refined to suit the domestic scale of the building. To reduce the environmental impact of the construction, these larch boards were re-used to build the external timber clad walls to the courtyard and garden.

In contrast to the external walls, the internal staircore has a smooth ply finish to give a softer surface where it is touched by the inhabitants. To offset the matt concrete finishes of the walls, a polished concrete floor was installed throughout the ground floor which extends the verticality of the slender glulam columns through their abstracted reflections.

The house features bespoke, on-site crafted joinery made from oak veneered ply with brass detailing. Two handmade chandeliers, constructed from leftover gold aluminium sections from the cladding, hang in the double height void spaces at either end of the glass link.

The building has been designed as a ‘healthy’ house with low-VOC paint throughout and zero-formaldehyde materials to create a healthy internal environment.

Sustainable features of the house include thermodynamic roof panels for the hot water, rain water harvesting, MHRV air handling and air source heat pumps.

Edgley Design is a young, creative award winning RIBA Chartered architectural practice based in Clerkenwell, East London, established by Jake Edgley in 2004.

We design contemporary houses that that aim to be distinctive, individual and pleasurable to inhabit. We believe that good design can deliver quality from modest means, with a minimal approach creating elegant, peaceful spaces that are efficient and environmentally friendly.