David Sheppard Architects’ Green House in Devon redefines its landscaped setting

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Joakim Boren

The Green House is on a privileged site near Tiverton in Devon, within the Heathcoat Amory family estate of Chevithorne Barton. Aside from its grade-two-listed mansion, the estate is renowned for its oak arboretum. The new house is located in a clearing surrounded by a variety of trees and overlooking two small lakes. The inclined landscape, as well as the proximity and significant height of the trees, informed the building’s massing and the distribution of interior spaces.

Designed by David Sheppard Architects, the house is ‘splayed’ in both plan and section in response to the site contours and in establishing a relationship with the lakes. From different angles the built form appears to be foreshortened, in turn falling, rising, expanding and sitting up in the landscape. Clad in thin strips of larch, it is imbued with a sense of solidity, as if it was crafted from a solid block of wood with carved apertures, suggests the architect.

The house is unceremonially entered from the side at the single inflected angle. The light-filled living/kitchen/dining area is revealed between the stairs – made from storm-felled trees – an internal ‘canopy’ embracing the wooded prospect. The prominent southerly facades face the two lakes, one for swimming and the other feeding a heat pump for heating and hot water. Water from the sedum roof is collected in a trough and percolates to the lake.

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