Seaward: revisit
Located high up on the cliffs above the South Devon coast, this striking and beautiful home was awarded an RIBA Town & Country Design Award in 2002, as well as receiving a highly commended accolade in The Daily Telegraph / Homebuilding & Renovating Awards in the same year.
The highly visible and sensitive cliff top location required a design that ensured the house sat in harmony with the landscape rather than dominating it - the solution was to design a building that follows the contours of the surrounding ground, by stepping the forms up the land and incorporating an innovative wave form roof to keep the building height low whilst also echoing the flow of it’s natural landscape.
Revolving around book ends of masonry cubes - one for the parents and one for the children - a central living space joins the two cubes and becomes the family focal point.
Designed as a single-storey, barrel-vaulted space, the living room comprises a central glazed lantern to throw light deep into the room whilst large areas of glazing maximise the stunning views of the sea and the town below.
Using materials that fit with the natural landscape, minimising the impact of the building on its sensitive rural setting, the house combines a structural green oak frame to tone with the trees; solid panels of rendered masonry and is topped with a moss-sedum clad waveform roof to blend in with the foliage. The main living space has a single-storey, barrel-vaulted matt finished stainless steel roof to give a cloudy, sky-like appearance and non-reflective glass is used throughout.
