GARDEN HOUSE

Lewes, East Sussex

Interventions and extensions to a prominent house, fitting modernism into the historic townscape.

Extending and re-working a house by distinguished Lewes architect, Michael Blee, itself a re-working of a 1930’s house, gave rise to the opportunity to add our smallest building yet. Set upon the mediaeval west wall, above eighteenth-century ornamental gardens, a studio of oak, glass and zinc makes a space for the contemplation of a vista across the South Downs. Extensions to the house, in oak frame and glass are underpinned by sustainable energy technologies.

Constructions of kite shape roof planes, oak plank walls and shafts of light make tiny additions to William Morris’ ‘box of toys under a great amphitheatre of chalky hills’ and show that the historical processes that have formed this English Town may continue with sensitivity and craft.