Replacing a californian style house with an updated version for modern family life
West Bay, West Dorset
This site is on the slope above West Bay near Bridport and is one of the older homes in this area. The previous Whitewings house had an impressive modernist design with Californian style in mind. There were large rooms, but these were high up above the ground level and felt distant from the lush setting. The building was also covered in metal frame single glazing, so was not comfotable for occupants in the hotter summers and frigid winters, and was causing the house to show signs of its age.
The clients came to us initially to remodel and retrofit the house to fulfil the spacial needs of their family and improve the current house’s performance, but it became apparent that so much of the house would need significant alteration to achieve their goals, that it would be more economical and environmentally conscious to do a replacement home instead.
The new home is a large villa just as the house that came before it, with some references to the old design in the roof forms, materials and orientation. However the new house places connection with the gardens at the forefront of its layout, with all the main spaces along and opening onto the eastern edge. Low roofs on the eastern side bring the height of the house down to a comfortable human scale on this elevation which had previously been a sheer face.
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The new circulation has been designed with the lifetime of the occupants in mind, wider corridors and a domestic lift enable ease of access to all areas of the house, even if the residents needs change. Another key part of the layout is to ensure that the main living areas can be seen from the kitchen so that younger members of the family can be supervised while being free to roam.
A new north-west wing provides a cosy sitting room area and office space. At first floor are the bedrooms with some vertical glazing in the stairwell facing the road-side to unite the home vertically. The outbuildings and pool area have all been designed as pieces of the puzzle that key into the character of the main house even if they are built in later phases.
