Flint House
Nov 27, 2015 12:34:38 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2015 12:34:38 GMT -5
Flint House in Buckinghamshire has just been revealed as the winner of Grand Designs: House of the Year. The winning entry, designed by architects Skene Catling De La Pena, was described by judges as a marvel of geological evolution and construction, and a celebration of location, material and architectural design at its best. Set in the flint-layered fields of the Rothschild’s estate at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, the building rises from the ground as dark, fashioned flint and slowly changes in construction and texture until its refined white chalk blocks disappear into the sky.
"This is a rare example of a poetic narrative whose realisation remains true to the original concept.
The site is a seam of flint geology surrounded by ploughed fields with the flints sitting on the surface. The project is conceived as two wedges of that geology thrusting up through the flat landscape. Their bases are knapped flint and slowly change in construction and texture until they become chalk walling, dissolving into the sky.
The house forms accommodation for family members, guests and artists. Internally the spaces carefully frame the landscape and provide a rich sequence of experiences, including a small rivulet of water that that cuts a grotto through a corner of the main house. Magic."
The site is a seam of flint geology surrounded by ploughed fields with the flints sitting on the surface. The project is conceived as two wedges of that geology thrusting up through the flat landscape. Their bases are knapped flint and slowly change in construction and texture until they become chalk walling, dissolving into the sky.
The house forms accommodation for family members, guests and artists. Internally the spaces carefully frame the landscape and provide a rich sequence of experiences, including a small rivulet of water that that cuts a grotto through a corner of the main house. Magic."
As for the garden, the planting will replicate or mimic what is found; to act as a memory or echo. It should reveal and intensify the essential nature of the site and the point of being here. The planting needs to be a subtle articulation of what is already there. At the centre of the site, the informal arrival point, there might be a practicality or even ‘edibility’ to what grows there: orchards, wild flowers, grasses. The building form is a response to the hierarchy of existing trees on site, the tallest part of the building in the highest existing trees to the north east. The aim is to create a almost inhabitable canopy for the master bedroom and roof terraces. Writing in 'The Architectural Review', Will Hunter concludes thus:
" ... Ultimately, it is intended that the house will be reclaimed by the mosses and lichens that the architect first found on the site. And, unlike so much contemporary architecture, this building will surely get better with age, as it softens with use and the patina of the natural world from which it emerged. As two adjacent examples of country-house living, the Flint House makes an intriguing contrast to the Manor. Both buildings are, of course, highly rhetorical; but while the 19th century building looks outside the estate for its anchor points, to the imported taste culture of French royalty and aristocracy, this latest monolithic addition is determinedly derived from the land itself. It is both of the earth and down-to-earth, a contemporary blend of the formal and informal. It is so rooted in its place, that it is hard to imagine it was ever not there, and it is impossible to imagine it on any other site than the one it is on."
The Architectural Review - Flint House in Buckinghamshire by Skene Catling de la Peña
As for Sydney, a flint house costing Jacob Rothschild (tens of) millions of pounds (undisclosed) is not going to help solve the global housing crisis! It is meant for the use of family and visiting artists and academics.
The Guardian - Flint House: the building that must be stroked
Any thoughts?
