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Architects: Conran & Partners
- Area: 425 m²
- Year: 2009
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Photographs:Jim Stephenson
Text description provided by the architects. Conran & Partners has designed a highly environmentally responsible, contemporary, family home in the grounds of a former school in East Sussex. The house expresses the strong horizontals found in the walls and hedges of the existing garden whilst built from a palette of high quality, traditional materials. Nestled into the existing trees to the north of the site, the house optimises its orientation with glazed south facing elevations, shaded by large overhangs. The copper clad first floor takes a linear form, spanning across the lower level from east to west and acts as an acoustic separation between the garden and the noise generated by the nearby A26. Waste from the dig for the site was mounded along the boundary of the road to further improve the noise levels in the garden.
The walls are built with the Beco-block insulated wall system, finished with lime render giving high u-values and high thermal mass. Underloor heating is powered by a heat pump connected to a 1000m ground loop laid in the field behind the house.
Internally the house is arranged around a double height, grand central entrance hall with a family wing to the east comprising kitchen, dining, utility rooms, and childrens bedrooms, while the west side of the house has the quieter, more formal spaces of, lounge, library and study room with the master bedroom and guest bedroom above.
