Lugton Brae House / Falconer + Jones with Andrew Brown

Jul 2010

By Sebastian J — Filed under: Houses , Andrew Brown, Edinburgh, Falconer + Jones, Scotland

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Edinburgh-based Falconer + Jones shared with us their project Lugton Brae House, co-designed with Andrew Brown. It’s a small family home, to be constructed in the garden to the rear of the existing house (owned by the clients).

You can see more images and architect’s description after the break.

Courtesy of Falconer + Jones

The client approached us and asked to investigate the possibility of building a new smaller home for themselves in the large back garden to the rear of their existing home. They currently reside in a large family home with many bedrooms however now that the children have all grown up and moved out they are wanting to downsize to a much smaller and easier to maintain property.

This is a proposal for a linear plan single storey dwelling consisting of two bedrooms, study, kitchen/dining and living area.

Courtesy of Falconer + Jones

The overall footprint of the building shall be relatively small in comparison to much of the buildings in the locality.

A strong sense of open space shall be achieved within the building through use of an open plan arrangement for the kitchen/dining and living areas, and also through strong connections with the dwellings landscaped garden which is accessible at various points throughout the building.

The new dwellings low height and seamless integration with existing site walls serve to reduce its visual impact as much as possible – both from street level and also from within the existing building and land.

Courtesy of Falconer + Jones

Although the new building is single aspect (facing entirely South East) the design makes use of roof lights along the length of the northern wall in order to bring light right into the full depth of the buildings plan.

The existing architecture of the surrounding areas is extremely varied, one aspect we noted however was the examples of smaller buildings appearing as satellite or secondary to larger dwellings (e.g. Home and stable-block arrangement). It is our aim to echo this typology – creating a new smaller dwelling that shall relate directly, through use of common materials, to the existing larger house..

Courtesy of Falconer + Jones

The method of construction proposed is that of timber frame, allowing for a relatively short construction period to minimise the potential disturbance to neighbours. Aside from the timber frame the materials proposed are intended to relate to the existing built environment as closely as possible. Site walls shall be constructed using re-claimed sandstone matching (as closely as possible) the stone used in the existing site walls and local architecture. The shallow mono-pitch roof shall be finished in the re-claimed slate tiles, again matching (as closely as possible) the existing building and the local architecture. Exposed timber frame and large areas of glazing shall be the finish of the dwelling on the elevation immediately addressing the new garden.

plan

Ultimately the objective with this proposal is to create a small dwelling that – although remaining extremely discreet from both the street and existing House – creates a uniquely open and bright building that provides a highly pleasant and private home for its occupants.

: Courtesy of Falconer + Jones

: Courtesy of Falconer + Jones

: Courtesy of Falconer + Jones

: Courtesy of Falconer + Jones

: Courtesy of Falconer + Jones

: Courtesy of Falconer + Jones

: plan

: elevation

: site plan

: section

Cite:
Jordana , Sebastian . "Lugton Brae House / Falconer + Jones with Andrew Brown" 21 Jul 2010. ArchDaily. Accessed 07 Feb 2012. <http://www.archdaily.com/69684>

Comments (10)
Tweets (17)
Links to this entry (1)

Gorgon says:

Great house can’t wait to see it built!

# July 21, 2010 at 12:54

Jesse Lockhart-Krause says:

Agreed, can’t wait to see it constructed.

The timber portal frames look fantastic. Great use of hdri backgrounds also, they give the images a warmth (are those hdri or photoshoped backgrounds?).

# July 21, 2010 at 22:03

Juan Gomez-Velez says:

I remember seeing this as a preliminary design in pushpullbar.com, where the difficulties of the program and the excellent site solution were explained and praised respectively. I for one am taken by the tectonics, and the amount of light it brings unto all interior spaces. Well done!

# July 21, 2010 at 23:35

James Falconer says:

Thanks for your kind words guys!

Also can’t wait to see it built, lets hope we have some developments to report in the near future.

Jesse, the background images are Pshopped in, I’ve not mastered Hdri yet.

Jim

# July 22, 2010 at 05:13

Enzo Girolami says:

The plan for this house is good – quite well resolved though it suffers in 3D; i.e., the section, elevation and connection to the site are underdeveloped. Look at Phifer’s Spencertown House for a conceptually similar plan that has been very thoughtfully considered in site section, and meticulously carried through to each last detail.

http://www.tphifer.com/#/spencertown-house

# July 22, 2010 at 05:19

Conceptually similar perhaps, but I fail to see why you think Phifers section relates to his site in a more meaningful manner? As far as I can tell, his site was was a large field, his section is very similar to ours other than he had a budget to do extensive landscaping to the area behind the house, allowing him to ramp the earth up. I’m not disagreeing that its a beautiful house, and I’m certainly not comparing our work to his, I’m just eager to hear what it is specifically that you feel our design lacks? Have you read the project description? If not then you should, as it will tell you that this site is directly behind a large existing house, thus dictating many of the design moves we made.

# July 22, 2010 at 12:01

Enzo Gorlami says:

I oversimplified the relevance of the Phifer house site design and agree with you that the projects are similar only in plan. Phifer was designing for a pristine idyllic site; I see now that your site required a rather urban strategy to accommodate privacy and access, perhaps though at the cost of views.

# July 22, 2010 at 22:58

…though, for a linear-plan house with little or no views, you have to look at the brilliant Japanese firm Suppose Design and their Obama house;

http://www.arplus.com/14005/house-in-obama-obama-japan-by-suppose-design-office/

They use the longitudinal space as a service zone, freeing up the regular-shaped areas for living functions. Seems that similar benefits could be incorporated into this zone in your plan along the site wall.

# July 22, 2010 at 23:20

mk1 says:

dude, you should become an architect.

# July 23, 2010 at 04:11

I know what you mean, and the service wall idea was one that we looked at during the early stages of design, but the proximity to the exisiting house and constraints applied by the local building authority meant that we had a very narrow footprint within which to work, we could go no closer to the existing house and we were also extremely reticant to reduce the size of the new house’s garden space. Thanks for the link though, thats another beautiful project.

# July 23, 2010 at 09:31

12:20 PM Jul 21st

Bocetos Digitales

Lugton Brae House / Falconer + Jones with Andrew Brown: Courtesy of Falconer + JonesEdinburgh-based Falconer + Jon… http://bit.ly/aKF7A7

spencer chan

Lugton Brae House / Falconer + Jones with Andrew Brown: Courtesy of Falconer + JonesEdinburgh-based Falconer + Jon… http://bit.ly/9tFOc7

12:21 PM Jul 21st

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12:30 PM Jul 21st

Architecture+Molding

Lugton Brae House / Falconer + Jones with Andrew Brown: Edinburgh-based Falconer + Jones shared with us their proj… http://bit.ly/aKF7A7