With complex restrictive covenants limiting the scope of the building on the land and a sloping site that falls 4.5 metres (14ft) the architect, Richard Horden, has created an “upside down” house of 282sq metres (3034 sq ft) and received a RIBA Award and a Civic Trust Commendation. With four bedrooms on the lower floor (ground level when viewed from the garden) and living rooms on the upper level (affording panoramic views over Poole Harbour and beyond) the design maximises the site’s potential and enables a family of four to live in calm modernity. By excavating the sloping site to create a hollow enabled the bedrooms on the lower ground floor to be cocooned in a highly insulated shell-like construction, which acts as a retaining structure and foundation for the first upper ground floor, which is a light steel –framed structure with full height glazing. The flat roof is a double layer with paving slabs absorbing solar energy above an air gap, to avoid the transmission of summer heat into the living areas. Photography: Dennis Gilbert/View (020 8870 9051)
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