Waterfield House by pH+ Architects – ADC

The appreciation of the AONB setting underscored the clients’ approach from the outset. Before considering the design of the new house, they first renovated the ruin of an old pump house, at the lower end of the sloping hillside site, as their temporary home. This allowed them to gain a detailed understanding of the local environment, and gave them time to consider how best to replace the existing bungalow at the top of the hill as their future home.

pH+ was appointed in 2016, by which time the clients had established a detailed brief. Planning was secured a year later although, as the owners refined their aspirations through constructive dialogue with Andy Puncher of pH+, three subsequent S73 variations were submitted over the next three years. This generosity of time was no doubt challenging to the structure of an architect’s appointment, but had the advantage of allowing a deeper understanding both of the client’s specific needs and of the site, so that the final siting and configuration of the new house takes full advantage of the stunning views across the Kentish Weald, and is experienced with both grandeur and intimacy.

The concept is very simple: a solid, masonry base is partially dug into the hillside, and extended out into the landscape with garden walls, disguising its true scale from afar. This plinth contains the more private bedroom and entertainment spaces, and creates a base for the lighter, dual-aspect living spaces located at the tree canopy level, taking advantage of stunning views down the valley. The upper floor has four large living areas arranged as a linear sequence of interconnected spaces, divided with custom cabinets, and linked to the lower-ground floor with a generous central atrium, which takes the public life of the house into the landscape setting.

The façade is articulated with great precision and confidence against its bucolic setting. Large sliding glazed doors sit behind movable larch shutters, which open and close to give varying degrees of shading, ventilation, and privacy, whilst casting dappled shadows throughout the day. As well as reading powerfully externally, this degree of adaptability gives the interior spaces a radically different character and allows the house to respond sensitively to the UK’s varied temperate climate.

Against the severity of the initial impression, the arrival sequence is charming, taking the visitor to the rear of the house, where the building naturally merges into the landscape. Climbing to the top of the site, the front door is discovered in a modest, south-facing entrance courtyard, providing shelter from the elements and allowing light deep into the plan. The scale of the house, at first imposing from the sweep of the drive, gradually reduces as you make this ascent, until it ultimately disappears as the sequence ends at the upper courtyard where a kitchen garden affords views through the building and over the green roof.

This shift of contrasting experiences reveals the close dialogue the architect held with the clients to negotiate an obsession with technology and engineering, alongside the sentimentality and practicality that makes a successful home; and equally to address the need for the building to be an inspiring place to work – in this case as a nutritionist with clients coming to the house – whilst also being a relaxed family home with three teenage children and dogs.

quality of life.

Similarly, the plan acknowledges the different qualities that are suited to different functions. The free-flowing main interior space encourages movement and interconnection between the enfilade of living spaces. A separate study and kitchen area are hidden within the living spaces, making it possible to invite clients into the home for nutrition consultations within a relaxing and natural environment. These rooms are nestled into what was the darkest corner of the site, close to woodland, bringing a warmth and sense of enclosure. At a practical level, they are also close to the entrance and to a generous mudroom where you can discard messy clothes and meet the dogs. This more understated scale makes the openness of the main living areas even more dramatic, completing the journey from spectacular landscape through a sequence of external then internal rooms which unfold to reconnect to the landscape.

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Where the enfilade plan follows the tradition of the grand entertaining spaces of ambassadorial residences, the formality has been inverted, with a flexible arrangement of rooms designed to anticipate future reconfiguration in response to changing lifestyles and an evolving relationship between home life and work.

Cabinetry conceals the functionality which would otherwise define a room’s function: kitchen appliances lie behind pocket doors, allowing the space to function as a meeting room or homework room. One of the joys of working on a house of this scale was the opportunity to work with highly skilled makers to create joinery and metalwork which have become features in themselves, from the beautifully executed staircase to the monumental sliding door that affords privacy to the client’s study, which terminates the enfilade of rooms.

The question of sustainability is important to address in terms of both scale and construction. This is a large house which one can assume takes a substantial amount of energy to keep warm and/or cool. The environmental strategy relies on two simple principles. Built into the hillside, the lower-ground floor rooms benefit from stable thermal mass; the lighter upper floors rely on their dual aspect and natural ventilation. A substantial green roof increases the biodiversity of an already green site, and provides additional thermal mass. This is common sense sustainability. Air-source heat pumps, discreetly located on the western elevation, reduce heating demand, and whole-house ventilation has been expertly crafted into interiors to help maintain fresh air and stable temperatures throughout the year. The house currently achieves an EPC rating of B with a score of 90; on the cusp of an A rating, which starts at 92. But there are no grand environmental measures; no photovoltaics or other sources of energy generation on site, nor rainwater harvesting which might have been an expectation for such a large building.

In its substantial scale and very particular resolution, this is not attempting to be a prototype for a typical family home. But itis a fascinating reinvention of the English Country House; one where home and work are successfully blended and formal and informal have been inverted. And which affords its owners an amazing quality of life.