RIAI | Irish Architecture Awards

Citation

Overseas (over €300,000)

Set into a designated ‘Site of Outstanding Natural Beauty’, this house excels in its lightness and transparency, in the manner in which it sits in the landscape, and in the elegance of its plan.

Architects Comment

This project is for a private house in mature woodland on an escarpment in the Chilterns. The site commands a beautiful view across the South Oxfordshire plain through a small gap in the dense trees. The brief from the client was based on the premise that they owned a very beautiful piece of woodland and that the architecture should be a frame for the surroundings. It should not draw excessive attention to itself.

The site had been purchased with planning consent to build a traditional ‘Chilterns Style’ house in place of a derelict house dating from the turn of the century. The planners were prepared to allow a new building only on the footprint of the old house. The site is a designated ‘Site of Outstanding Natural Beauty’. On no account could the mature trees be disturbed.

The design is for a private house for this couple and some additional rooms for guests. An indoor heated pool formed part of the brief from the outset. The brief for the budget was to make a simple house, inexpensive to build, but with lots of transparency. This would allow a larger proportion of the fixed budget to be spent on the luxury of a pool. We chose a regular steel framed structure with timber cladding and suspended ground floor. In this way the house stands like a suspended box on the site with only the steel columns disturbing the floor of the woodland.

The design began with an anecdote about the view from Mies Van der Rohe’s Tugendhat House. The sequence of approach to Jacob’s Ladder matches that memory of Tugendhat. The view across Oxfordshire is framed by an opening through the house as you approach. This picks out the only significant gap in the trees. You enter across a bridge onto a deck on the first floor. When you go inside, the view is concealed. As you descend into the Living Room the view is revealed again. The promise of the view, given and withheld, is the thread that draws the circulation through the building. This journey ends with a sight line down along the swimming pool. The pool is tiled in black to reflect the colour of the tree canopy. When you dive in you swim straight out into the view.

Client Comment

Living at Jacob’s Ladder

The light streams into the house and it is bright even on a gloomy day.

We feel totally at one with our surroundings. Not only are we encompassed by a beautiful woodland but we wake with bird song and sleep to the sound of owls and deer.

The presence of water as an integral part of the house is both calming and exciting in providing ever charging reflections.

Jacob’s ladder makes full use of the south and westerly aspects. We have the warmth of the sun during daylight hours and in the evening spectacular sunsets which we can watch from most of the rooms and the swimming pool.

The office, which in common with all of the primary living rooms enjoys expansive views over Oxfordshire and also provides a further guest suite if required.

This flexibility means that all the rooms are in daily use rather than only fulfilling specific roles. Our guests have freedom to move about one end of the house without compromising our or their privacy.

In summary we are both extremely happy with Jacob’s Ladder and are looking forward to spending many more years here.