House in Wiltshire
A 1950s stone clad modest house is an example of a nondescript house in a wonderful location. It stands by a bend in the River Nadder overlooking water meadows. There were restrictions on enlarging the house on such a sensitive site. The answer was to extend upwards an existing garage and adding a link. The link provides habitable space and serves to alter the character of the existing house.
The link provides an entrance, a passage and a bay “room” behind a uniform facade. Above the new building is a space that contrasts with rest of the house, larger and more open, non-prescriptive, and can serve as anything from a place to entertain, to a large study in which work.
The junction of the two new elements with the existing house creates a sheltered courtyard away from the road.
The work/shed function of the new building is expressed in the almost agricultural use of timber cladding with large sliding doors, concealed openings for boilers and hooks for ladders. The zinc roof is also reminiscent of a shed structure.
A few modest but crucial alterations to the existing rooms connect the formerly enclosed cramped rooms to the garden.