Meadow House is a replacement house in a rural village in Essex.

The beautiful site sits at the edge of the village, and has an open parkland feel.  Our approach was to ensure that we placed great emphasis on the landscape so the house and site were considered as one.

To re-organise the site, our proposals insert a series of walls which respond to the physical site features. A wall starting near the access point to the site delineates the entrance, and with another wall perpendicular to the first, an entrance court is defined. A third wall on a south-west to north-east axis defines an area facing south-west for living and another for sleeping that faces south east to catch the morning light. A final fourth wall defines an area to be used as kitchen garden and where the ancillary building containing the study and gym is located. Together the walls form a pin-wheel arrangement of space. The entrance and access point to the different areas are at the centre and at the pivot point of the plan arrangement.

Four different pavilions, each with its own function, occupy the four different corners of the pin-wheel plan. To the north-east is the detached garage volume, also containing plant, utility and storage. These utilitarian functions are placed in the most public part of the site, ensuring that upon entering the plot, visitors are held at a slight remove from the more private family areas. To the south-east is the gym/ office. This volume is located in a walled garden. This is the higher part of the site, allowing the walled garden to be set into the ground to reduce visual impact. 

To the south-west is the bedroom wing - it faces south-east to capture the morning light. The master bedroom is at the end, allowing the best views out over the landscape. The final volume contains the social areas: kitchen, dining and living room. By locating all other functions in the other volumes, this pavilion can be very clean in its architecture, achieving an elegant and distinct appearance. By continuing the external walls we create a series of walled gardens, each with its own identity and purpose, and creating visual continuity out into the gardens.

In the centre of the pin-wheel plan sits the primary access and circulation space. This is pulled up vertically to form another floor in the centre of the plan, accommodating a more formal sitting room, benefiting from elevated views of the site and surrounding countryside. The over-sailing roofs are strong features of the house, helping to define spaces, frame views and provide texture and material warmth. The timber soffit will run from inside to the outside, strengthening the appearance of the roof as a singular plane, and ensuring a link between internal and external environments. With stone walls that extend from being part of the house, to becoming part of the landscape, and with ground and roof planes that do similarly, we ensure that the house is grounded to the wide, open site.

A luxury contemporary replacement home in Essex designed by Ström Architects draws you in to the entrance quadrant with a long stone wall joining the clerestory glazing with a floating overhanging roof where you end up to the double storey entrance where there’s a captivating flow to this Pinwheel design with Slim profile sliding glass doors enveloping each of the living spaces offering sublime views to the mature open parkland feel garden. Once inside the luxury contemporary home, the double height airy entrance space acts as the pivot point of the pinwheel design.

The main kitchen and dining space uses slim profile sliding glass doors in global alignment with the structural pillars of the pavilion style overhanging roof reflecting the minimal clean lines of the architecture. Seven oversized panes of slim profile sliding glass doors are installed in two open corner configurations. The first open corner to the side has over 4m glass facade with one fixed and one bi parting to the widest elevation which spans over 6m in two oversized panes which had to be installed by cranes due to the panels weighing in excess of 360kg each. The varying width sliding glass doors perfectly align with the steel posts when closed.

The widest aperture achieved when all the elements are open is more than two thirds of the entire space. The slim profile sliding door frames are finished to RAL 7016 Matt with 21mm visible sightlines. A large window box is positioned on the same elevation as the long clerestory glazed wall as a reading nook in the beating heart of this Luxury contemporary replacement home. As you move through the kitchen space to the snug, you pass through a dedicated outdoor kitchen with high engineered timber, and a pine tree growing through the timber clad roof opening adding to the clean yet playful design.  The outdoor space from the snug can be increased once the slim sliding doors are opened creating the perfect indoor outdoor entertaining space close to the long and narrow swimming pool.

Oversized slim profile sliding glass doors continue in the bedrooms on the south west elevation of this Luxury contemporary home with full height frameless glass panels in an open corner configuration promoting the connection between the outdoors and indoors with the master bedroom owning the best views of the garden.

As the walls continue round to the south east of the pinwheel layout, slim Sieger sliding glass doors, casement windows and doors are installed to the utilitarian areas which house the study and the gym.  The slim profile sliding glass doors use an elegant floor to ceiling shading system in the living spaces to reduce any solar gain on top of the over sailing cantilevered roof. The automated shades are seamlessly recessed into the timber ceiling with the minimal track of the sliding doors visible blurring the boundaries of inside and outside. This luxury contemporary pavilion style replacement home appears to float on the parkland landscape with the slim profile sliding glass doors and the warmth of the timber becoming two of the most celebrated materials within this exemplary design.