Paul +O Architects’ The Wilderness is an angular, sculptural house design that sits in a secluded 50 acre woodland setting. The muted shades of the house’s traditional Suffolk building materials – render, timber and flint – provide a link with nature, echoing the colours of the broad sky and the earth. Nature in fact generated the design, as the grid of the site was formed by rides and hedgerows. The house’s form combines tradition and modernity in function, materials and style, drawing on a European architectural language that is filtered by site conditions, historical references and geography. The client wanted a modern house filled with light, with social spaces and guest accommodation as well as a painting studio and library. Public and private demands are therefore balanced, so that there is plenty of room for entertaining, but spaces remain intimate and comfortable when the owner is at home alone. The house was designed to open on all sides with a cruciform plan that embraces the landscape and exploits aspect and shelter. The ground floor is largely transparent, blurring divisions between inside and outside. A double volume entrance hall is screened from the living room by a spine wall that bisects the house. To the east are the studio and the library, and to the west are the double height kitchen/dining area, service areas, and the swimming pool. The upper floor has six bedrooms. Ground conditions have had a strong influence on the design. A 6 metre deep clay lens and the possibility of heave dictated that the house should be built on a raised plinth resting on mini-pile foundations and ground beams. The house has a lightweight steel structure to reduce the loadings on the mini-piles and achieve the large cantilevers and long open spaces. The house’s plinth is clad in flint and the external walls are of insulated render on metal studwork. The timber windows are stained black. Traditional building materials are used in a contemporary manner, while internally the colour palette and luxurious finishes are restrained. Internal joinery is stained oak, downstairs flooring is basalt, and upstairs flooring is double fumed oak. To complement the architecture, the surrounding garden is being enriched with trees, shrubs and perennials native to the area.
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