• Client: Private
• Architect: SG Architecture
• Completion: 2022
• Size: 142m²
• Expertise: Structures, Civils, Building Services

A new three-bedroom private home in the Kentish High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Webb Yates Engineers were appointed by the property owners to deliver the structural, civil and building services engineering design.

The house was designed to sit sensitively and sustainably within the site; a low profile and natural materials minimise the structures visual and environmental impact, while allowing for a functional, modern, and modest family house. Concrete has been rejected in favour of low carbon materials, including Pollmeier BauBuche timber – a laminated veneer lumber sourced from a forest with an excess of beech. The building is clad in untreated larch which will weather to a silvery grey colour over time.

Prior to its demolition, an existing derelict outbuilding on the site revealed signs of past ground movement caused by the surrounding foliage. In its place, the home was designed to avoid a similar fate; a reinforced concrete suspended slab supported by screw piles allows for variations in the terrain beneath.

The joisted timber roof cantilevers to create solar shading to the south facing windows, preventing overheating in summer months and avoiding the need for mechanical cooling systems. The home employs a number of sustainable technologies, including mechanical ventilation heat recovery, an air source heat pump, and solar film for on-site energy generation.

The drainage scheme is entirely self-contained. Surface water runoff from the duo-pitched roof is diverted to a future-proofed soak away, designed with a 40% allowance for climate change. An on-site treatment plant clarifies and disperses water waste to an adjacent field.