Orchard House | Studio Octopi

Orchard House was commissioned by our Client as a place in which to live, work and pursue various arts and crafts. The Client specifically wanted to create a lasting piece of responsive architecture that was not defined by her use of a wheelchair and where the building interacted effortlessly with the landscape. The house has been designed to Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes. Located on the site of a former walled kitchen garden and orchard, landlocked and accessed only by a track from the main road, the house and gardens form a sequence of enclosures that unfold revealing a private interior world reminiscent of the secret garden. The design and materials reference the style of traditional agricultural buildings preserving the original character of the site: the lower storey is lime rendered and the upper clad in loosely spaced finger-jointed Sweet Chestnut slats. The slats were left to weather naturally to a soft grey providing a low-maintenance cladding. The house is of timber frame construction super insulated with sheep’s wool insulation. Glu-lam trusses were composed on site to support the upper storey. Access to the site was limited, so a site built timber frame was essential to keep costs low and the construction simple. An historical ‘boundary’ wall was reinstated, intersecting the house, formed from local limestone. Sweet Chestnut ledged and braced doors pierce through the wall to the private world within. A simple free flowing plan wraps around a glazed central courtyard filling the house with natural light. Timber framed glass doors and vent panels were formed from Sweet Chestnut, with Douglas Fir structural columns and cills around the fixed glazing. All of these timber insertions were finished with white oil and lye, muting their colour and allowing the grain of the timber to be expressed. The same muted palette of materials runs throughout the house: white washed timber, grey ceramic floor tiles, sprayed MDF joinery and chalk grey walls. The shallow plan, careful alignment of windows and a double height gallery allow views to cut across the building to the various gardens enabling multiple readings of the space. Two large sliding doors can be drawn to close down the open plan, shutting off the entrance hall, or library and master bedroom from the main living space. The upper storey provides an office and second bedroom with slatted timber screens to the windows that look out over the historic houses of Calne. The kitchen is tucked away to the east, with a door onto the vegetable garden and views over the driveway. Bespoke kitchen units with spray painted MDF door and drawer fronts were finished with chunky Sweet Chestnut and slender stainless steel worktops. A studio was included to the north of the house looking over the orchard garden allowing the client to practise various arts and crafts both inside and out. Timber decked terraces stretch out to the north and south, blurring the boundary between the house and gardens. In the orchard, three old fruit trees are planted in an arrangement that suggests a fourth once stood between them. We replaced the missing tree, forming the focal point of the central courtyard. Materials: Sweet Chestnut: Great Britain: coppiced finger jointed slats: Vasterns. Sweet Chestnut: Great Britain: joinery grade: Vasterns. Douglas Fir: Great Britain: structural grade: Vasterns. Glu-lam: Sweden: Moelven. Lime Plaster – Ty Mawr, Wales Structural engineer _ Milk Structures Builder _ Nigel Lloyd