Arun House
This landscape led project resulted in a crafted underground home for a family seeking a calm and joyful retreat. A space which gathers them as a family and allows for intimate moments of reflection. Responding to the sloping topography of the site and wider landscape the home nestles into the slope, wrapped in the landscape in which it sits. On the edge of a village the site caused us to question the ideal of transition and terminus.
How do our settlements terminate harmoniously with our countryside, can they become cohesive?
As the location of the childhood home and where many generations had resided the move to relocate and build in the area meant the client had a deep connection and rootedness with the area and its key material, Flint.
Project Info
Environmental Data
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Energy Efficiency
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Insulation
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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Thermal Mass
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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Airtightness
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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Embodied Carbon
1 2 3 4 5
- Heating/Hot Water
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Solar Thermal
Yes No
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Rain Water Harvest
Yes No
- Ventilation
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Energy Storage
Yes No
As part of our process we delve into the context of the site, the history, poetry and geography. Uncovering the story of the project. The roots of Arun House took influence from the areas history and founding on flint extraction. The home is carved out of the earth, drawing on the idea of extraction, the topography, and the need for the home to nestle into this sensitive landscape context. Forming a central courtyard in which life is played out whilst the home is wrapped in earth.
As a social family with a love of entertaining, the clients wanted family living to be centred around the hearth as a place to gather, celebrate, and anchor the home. An open-plan living wing supports the functions of the kitchen, living, and dining areas, which open into the enclosed landscaped courtyard.
A snug area becomes the threshold between public communal living and private bedroom spaces. Celebrating the act of circulation, the snug becomes a gallery and connects the intimate spaces with the places to gather.
Paired back in its approach the simple material palette celebrates the landscape. Wrapped in local flint, the home is low carbon and energy efficient, reducing and minimising its impact on the wider environment. Each a different experience of the landscape and its story.
Bedrooms flooded with light from above creating a place of immersion, a more intimate space for retreat. The changing seasons are experienced through the sky.
"Around the hearth the first groups formed. It is the first and most important, the moral element of architecture. Around it were grouped the three other elements; the roof, the enclosure and the mound, the protecting negations or defenders of the hearths flame against the hostile elements of nature" - Gottfried Semper
Utilising thermal mass and the sheltering warmth of the earth helps stabilise internal temperatures, minimise diurnal temperature fluctuations, and reduces the energy needed for space heating. An MVHR system recirculates and provides ventilation, and a ground source heat pump provides energy for water heating. Natural clay plaster will be used and British timber flooring. This works alongside the practice’s desire to achieve, if not exceed, the targets set out by the RIBA Climate Challenge 2030.
