House of Glass | Vaughan Keal

So named 'House of Glass' as a testiment to the extraordinary flexibility of glass products available and their appropriate use here to produce a unique building in both technology and spatial form.

The walls and floor are made from foamed insulating glass blocks and glasscrete [glass lime cement]. With glass panels, transparent glazing, and grp components this build employs innovation in depth. Easy to shape, ameobic spatial form to best arrange sunlight entry and views out with protective courtyard enclosed, in the site constraints, the walls are curved especially at corners to suit the construction method of cellular blocks coated with glass render and galleted with flint and slag glass inserts for a modern interpretation of the knapped flint used on a nearby church. The building sparkles in sunlight during the day and night-time electrics, forming a haze across the surface, dematerialising the form.

Asymetric roofline ties in with Conservation Area need for a pitched roof approach, giving a counterpoint to the construction and spatial form below, lined with wood ceilings in honey tones providing a warmth and familiarity, contrast to grand ground floor high ceilings and clean sleek finishes. All a deliberate contrast, between showy daytime space and homely space for sleeping.

One enters via a grand sandblasted milky glass door, to view through unfolding space, with a crystal main stair feature, as one circumnavigates the courtyard beyond is revealed, the far side a whole wall of water, spilling into a rill. A moving water wall, rippling and shining liquid, lit by LEDs to light the courtyard at nightfall.....turn off the internal lights and relax in the reflected lightshow from outside.

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