Client: Private
Location: Wembury, South Devon
Engineer: John Grimes Partnership
Contractor: AD Williams
In collaboration with Zac Munro Architects
Winner of Build Architecture Award 2017
Featurted on Channel 4’s Inside Out Homes
With spectacular views of Wembury Bay and within walking distance of the beach, this house was calling out for a bit of extra space and a better connection to its surroundings. The additions transform the layout of the house, providing an open plan ground floor connected to the garden and the views of the sea. Upstairs four double bedrooms are arranged around a light filled atrium.
“Tim’s knowledge was critical to the project, producing detailed drawings, assebling the project team and working closely with teh clients throughout the build. The result is a unique light-filled family home in an incredible setting”
Good Homes Magazine, May 2018
Gallery
Press
Good Homes Magazine
May 2018
‘A unique, light-filled family home in an incredible and undeniably enviable setting…the couple couldn’t be happier with the outcome. “We feel very lucky to be able to live and work in such a fantastic house”.’
Inside Out Homes
2017
Architect Zac Monro, engineer Monty Ravenscroft, and gardener Rosie Bines tear down the walls of seven houses across Britain to create homes and outside spaces that unlock the potential of living inside and out like never before.
Further Info
Originally built in the 70s, this gable fronted cottage overlooking the sea needed extensive work. Existing flat roofed extensions were at the end of their life and additional space was required for a growing family. The house was also not making the most of its spectacular setting, in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty backing on to National Trust land and the dramatic cliffs of Wembury Bay.
The brief was always to maintain something of the original house. The white gable is a familiar marker in the landscape and provided the base for the transformation. The house has been stripped back to its core and the land adjacent excavated to double the footprint. The original gable has been mirrored with a 1.8m wide gap between. Clad in slate, this new gable hunkers into the sloping site and the two volumes have an intuitive relationship with their surroundings. Recognisable as a simple repeat of volumes they offset comfortably against the wonderful disorder of the wooded valley.
At ground floor the seaward elevation is completely opened up to the view with extensive glazing, and an open plan layout creates a sense of space and connection to the surroundings. The double height atrium has large windows at first floor, washing the space with light and allowing views through. The stair rises in this space to a balcony from which the 4 double rooms are accessed.
The extension was built as sustainably as possible with appropriately oriented and situated openings, timber frame with as much insulation as the budget would allow and on a shoestring – many of the finishes being kept and upcycled from what was removed from the old house.
The project was a collaboration between Zac Monro Architects in London and Tim Offer Architects in Devon, and it was the subject of the TV series Inside Out Homes on C4.
Development
On Site
