House at Pipers End
2008
This new build family house replaces a dilapidated farmhouse on a two acre site in rural Hertfordshire. Planning permission for the new house was awarded, despite the sensitivities of its Greenbelt location, because the new house was demonstrated to be more sustainable in the long term than the refurbishment of the existing building.
The design of the new house is sensitive to its setting within the existing mature landscape, which includes an orchard belonging to the original house.
The house and the immediate landscaping surrounding it are conceived in plan as five strips, characterised by different materials: a thicket of silver birch, a timber cabinet, a glass box, a loggia of steel columns supporting a perforated metal canopy, and a concrete reflecting pool.