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Architects: Urban Agency
- Area: 58 m²
- Year: 2018
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Photographs:Paul Tierney
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Manufacturers: DAMP PROOF CAVITY DRAINAGE MEMBRANE, Forbes & Lomax, SGS Structural Glazing Specialists, Schiedel, traditional lime
“The best preventive remedy to ageing is architecture”.
How to design and build a project that will take few decades to complete “on time” for its owner retirement plan? In this project, ageing and weathering serve as a critical design tool for thinking about how architecture might intercept the changing state of weathering on site.
On a sloping rural site with views over the land, the form and orientation of an existing cottage generates two further, similar buildings, which offer a more complete inhabitation of the ground.
The first, a south-facing bedroom emerges from the hill; the second, a bathroom with double height shower of traditional Moroccan construction is largely contained within it.
The three buildings are connected by a subterranean rooflit corridor whose walls retain the earth. These are sheds, entirely made out of in situ concrete (walls and roofs) and finished with a natural rust iron pigments usually used for gardening, making reference in color and form to vernacular construction.
