ADVERT I SEMENT F EATURE
IMAGES The larch-clad exterior of the 1234 House, and an interior shot of the kitchen
house. Estate agents prone to using such terms might call the design ‘sympathetic’. The brief for Hugo was to expand the largely original four-bedroom 100 sq m house to comfortably accommodate its owners and their four growing children. It definitely needed to be bigger – four is a lot of children – but more critically it should be better suited to the way they wanted to live. The challenge was to modify the traditional narrow landings and hallways and the regular-shaped, individual rooms that radiate off into comfortable shared spaces that encourage the older children not to become total recluses, but to retain the ability to get privacy when they need it. An easy enough task with a big budget, an empty plot, a blank sheet of paper and a client with modest design aspirations, but far more challenging with none of these. The owner is a director of Cambridge creative agency, The District. Many designers will tell you that designers from other areas of practice are a bit of a pain to have as clients. Understanding what makes beautiful printed media is not the same as knowing what makes good architecture. While there are clearly shared skills, a successful crossover from one area of design to another is quite a rare thing. Google Zaha Hadid’s Z-Car or Paul Smith’s Lasonic i931 if you are in any doubt. But when it works well, a designer who can submit to the vision of an architect can be the very best of clients. At a meeting of Over Parish Council in 2019 to discuss the future of housing in the village, the 1234 House was projected large on to the wall as an example of the very type of contemporary design that the Parish Council absolutely did not want. Ouch. But as Victor Hugo wrote: “You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea.” Building something a little daring will always polarise, whether it’s a house or a funny black and white logo with
“Building something a little daring will always polarise”
traditional cul-de-sac home, both inside and out. It’s special enough to bring the owners joy and pride, but simple enough to be affordable to create. It’s perhaps better for both the bigger world and the local community to reinvent the houses we have to suit our changed way of living, than to knock them down and start again or (though sadly worse for estate agents) pack up and move house. As you stand outside the local primary school and look across its playground to the rise and fall of the ridgeline of the house and its contrasting walls, it’s not hard to see why it challenges those who would prefer to retain the conservative aesthetic of a rural village. No doubt the same views were expressed when the first brick houses went up in the rows of timber and clay cottages in the 1800s. But as time passes, we understand those houses form part of the public history of a village, observable and understandable to all through its street scene. In 15 years, when fashion has changed again, the 1234 House will look very 2017. And so it should.
little dashes above and below the letters, some people are immediately jarred by bold design, others think it’s the only type of design worth doing. It’s not the scale or proportions of the 1234 House that separates people, simply the external treatments. The three main volumes are defined by their distinct finishes. The original brick house is dramatically painted half black and half white, the front extension clad in sharp, unfinished larch and the rear in deep- textured charred larch. It’s a serious bit of contemporary architecture. But the bright yellow underside of the porch overhang and blue front door bring welcome levity. From the outside, there’s no doubt the house belongs to someone a bit hip, but they’re probably fun hip rather than intimidating hip. Internally, the design has been approached similarly: it’s 160 sq m, but it does not seek to unnecessarily reinvent how the family should live for the sake of architectural experimentation, nor does it bow totally to convention. The large, shared landing in the middle of the house is not usual, but once you see how it works in centring the shared upstairs activities of the family, you can’t help think it should be. It’s private yet communal in a way downstairs rooms can never be, and brings the first floor into use more often than just at bed time, making the whole house more efficient to use. To the objective, progressively- minded observer, the 1234 House might be considered a pleasing evolution of the
85
C A M B S E D I T I O N . C O . U K
J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0
Powered by FlippingBook