On the edge of Putney Heath in London, Stylus Architects has transformed a plot of land behind a Victorian home into Green Lodge: a larch-clad family home that is nestled in the landscape. This earth-sheltered design provides natural thermal stability, helping to regulate indoor temperatures and reduce heating and cooling demand. Combined with a photovoltaic system and an air-source heat pump, this contemporary home achieves very low operational energy use.
Architectural context
The home is located within what the architects describe as a "complex context," a landscape populated by examples of Gothic Revival, Arts and Crafts, Victorian and Georgian architecture. Planning constraints demanded a restrained response, and the site itself was tightly constrained. The project, Stylus Architects say, began with a single instruction from a longstanding client: "Do whatever you want, but it has to be quick."
Design solution
The solution was a carefully calibrated massing strategy that reduces the building's perceived scale while unlocking a rich and generous internal arrangement. By lowering the bedrooms below ground level, the home maintains a modest presence within its setting while benefiting from the insulating properties of the surrounding earth. This passive strategy helps regulate indoor temperatures throughout the year while opening the interiors to daylight and views of the courtyard and surrounding landscape.
Construction and design
The building is organised around a clear structural and spatial logic. Two fair-faced concrete spine walls divide the plan into three distinct bays, shaping both the internal layout and the external form. Their exposed finish provides both the primary structure and thermal mass, helping to stabilise internal temperatures while eliminating the need for additional wall finishes. Above, an asymmetric vaulted roof—its geometry derived from the golden ratio—creates a defining silhouette that sits easily amongst neighbouring buildings and mature trees.
Wood
The building is clad in untreated larch across all façades and the roof, allowing the timber to weather naturally from brown to silver and helping the home blend further into the wooded landscape over time. Inside, the timber language continues with custom joinery, storage and built-in furniture that contrast against the exposed concrete spine walls.
“Joinery provided an opportunity to express the volumes, adding definition and a sense of drama. It became a means of articulating both the architecture and the craftsmanship.”
Matthew Withers, Stylus Architects
Lighting
While the bedrooms are located below ground, every room within Green Lodge receives natural daylight. South-facing lightwells line the rear of the house, bringing light deep into the subterranean bedrooms and bathrooms, while a large rooflight above the stairwell draws daylight through the centre of the home to illuminate the lower hall. Together, these passive strategies reduce reliance on artificial lighting during the day and contribute to the home's low-energy performance. After dark, carefully integrated lighting aligned with the building's geometry illuminates the interiors, with artificial light given the same consideration as natural light.
