Our work

New House competition

Competition Entry - Project 2020 Design Competition - Taylor Wimpey

We have worked with a number of home owners in the last 5 years from young families to mature down sizers helping them to extend and unlock spaces in their properties to enable them to remain in their homes for longer.

This has lead us to consider whether a house type could be developed to accommodate this variety of individual requirements with future extensions built-in to the design of the house from the outset, offering more flexibility and longer term use of the property to its owners.

We believe this could be achieved by providing more space at ground floor than first floor level, potentially for use exclusively as living space.

This concept is also derived from a Scandinavian way of living where greater space is dedicated to living than sleeping encouraging more interaction between family members of all ages. We think this is especially important now when children are exposed to electronic devices more than ever before.

Our design embraces the concept of adaptable open-plan living where rooms can be opened up or screened-off to varying degrees with large openings and sliding doors.

The connection between home and garden is addressed at different levels by letting the outside overlap into the entrance porch, then bringing daylight into the core of the home through the stairwell before opening up the view to a two-storey dining space looking onto the rear garden. There is also a roof terrace at first floor level providing more private external space directly accessed off the landing. The use of natural materials such as timber cladding battens, screens and balustrades also help to enhance this connectivity to nature both internally and externally.