Award winner for best house of one or two storeys
Safe from any flood
Whitehaven, Tiddington Road, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire CV37 7BD
Climate change has made everyone more conscious of the risk of flooding in areas close to rivers and streams, and Stratford-upon-Avon has suffered several times in the past from what is called “an extreme flood event,” notably in 1947 and 1968. Following a survey in 1990 and a feasibility study in 1994, it was decided that nothing should be done to improve the channel of the River Avon because the works would either be ineffective or too excessive, as water levels in Stratford are largely controlled by two weirs and a sluice gate.
A cost-benefit analysis undertaken to assess the possibility of building new embankments or walls found that the costs far outweighed the benefits on a 100-year event. So it was decided to do nothing, even though the possibility of extreme flooding is now put at a return period estimated at between 1 in 40 years and 1 in 90 years.
So when a rundown bungalow on a beautiful riverside site came onto the market, the only planning consideration, in view of the long-term possibility of flooding, was that any new house should be built on stilts. Warwick architects SM C Corstorphine & Wright obtained outline planning permission for a new house for private clients who decided to sell the site before any building work started. The house was provisionally called “The House-on-Stilts.”
The buyer was a local builder and housing developer, Connell Furey, of Oakfield Developments (Midlands) Ltd. He thought at first of building the house for his own occupation, but when his wife said she did not want to move from their present house, he decided to build what he has now called Whitehaven as a commercial proposition to demonstrate the quality of Oakfield’s workmanship.
He brought in Alex McIntyre of Beckett Jackson Thompson Architects of Nottingham to work up the design for detailed planning permission, which involved tweaking the concept design to meet the Building Regulations and satisfying the Environment Agency and the local planning authority on details such as the distance of the new house from the river, the maximum footprint, the maximum height and – most important of all – the elevation of the house above ground level.
On the entrance front, a feature has been made of the external staircase, which is T-shaped in plan, with two flights rising from the drive meeting a third flight up to the large entrance balcony. The supporting columns (or stilts) hide the mains services, and the undercroft can be used as a carport or as a covered games area.
It was decided to maximise the fenestration on the garden elevation and to give all the river-facing rooms large balconies, especially the master bedroom, which has a balcony running the full width of the room, plus another balcony opening off the ensuite bathroom. There are also two balconies leading off the open-plan living area on the upper ground floor, each of which has a flight of steps down to the riverside garden, at the end of which is a private dock and steps down to a mooring.
Seen from across the River Avon, the impact of the house on the landscape has been softened by this extensive glazing and by the crisp, pared-down design, with all external balustrades made from structural glass, and all the sheet-glass windows being set in slender aluminium frames. The low roofline also helps to minimise the impact of the building.
The large amounts of double glazing and the open-plan of the house maximises the amount of usable space and the daylight. Underfloor heating also increases the flexibility of the openplan living area. High thermal efficiency has been achieved by minimising the windows on the flank walls, thereby giving privacy to the occupants of the house and to neighbouring properties. The deep overhang of the roof shields the bedrooms from direct sunlight.
The house is finished to a high specification, with Siematic kitchen units and Miele appliances, Villeroy & Boch fittings to the ensuite bathrooms or shower rooms to all four bedrooms, a Japanese hydrotherapy tub, and a four-zone home entertainment system with a hidden home cinema (the screen dropping down from the ceiling and the projector being hidden in the wall).
An international firm of interior designers, Creame & Browne of Lichfield, dressed the house as a show home for Oakfield Developments Midlands, which has been placed on the market for sale through the Birmingham office of King Sturge Residential for £1.5 million. The company is currently developing new housing in Malvern, West Bromwich and Birmingham. As an advertisement for the company, Whitehaven (or its more descriptive previous name “The House-on-Stilts”) takes some beating, but it is also an excellent prototype for all the thousands of new houses that are about to be built on other floodplains, notably in the Thames Gateway.
HomeBuilder: OAKFIELD DEVELOPMENTS MIDLANDS LIMITED
16 Upland Road, Selly Park, Birmingham B27 7RJ
Tel 0121 472 3736 Fax 0121 414 0532
Contact: Connell Furey, Managing Director
Email: johnpfurey@aol.com
Architects:
Concept: SMC CORSTORPHINE & WRIGHT
Brook Hall, Brook Street, Warwick CV34 4BL
Tel 01926 402323 Fax 01926 495318
Contact: Brian Hartley, Associate Director
Email: brookhall@cw-warwick.co.uk
Website: www.smccorstorphineandwright.com
and
Execution: BECKETT JACKSON THOMPSON ARCHITECTS
8, Eldon Chambers,
Wheeler Gate,
Nottingham,
NG1 2NS
tel: 0115 9243268
fax 0115 9243269
Email: bjt.architects@dial.pipex.com
Interiors: CREAM & BROWNE
Willow Court, Tamworth Road, Lichfield, Staffordshire WS14 9HB
Tel 01543 258088 Fax 01543 258077
Email: sales@creameandbrowne.co.uk
Website: www.creamandbrowne.co.uk
Photography: ALASTAIR CAREW-COX (01386 792404)
