#PR-470
House · Elegant contemporary
Design project for a house, 247 m²
House · 247 m² · In progress
About the project
A 247 m² country house that had to be designed all over again. Poor building work ended in a burst heating pipe: the water ran down through the house and the finishes were stripped back to brick, floors, walls, ceilings and services alike.
The previous interior was not restored. The furniture the client asked to keep was removed before the strip-out and taken into storage against an inventory, and its dimensions went into the new plans before any finishing began.
Client request
The clients came to us after the accident. The house had been finished and lived in, and then it was lost: the heating pipes burst because of poor building work and the water ran through both storeys. There was nothing left to save. Floors, walls, ceilings and services were taken back to brick.
The client's request was short: do not repeat what was there. The new interior had to be calmer than the old one, and of a higher order.
Challenge
A house with no finishes looks like freedom. Nothing limits the choice of materials, but the geometry stayed as it was: the pitched roof of the attic storey, the position of the staircase, the window openings, the routes already run. We designed inside what had survived of the building.
The services went out with the finishes, and it was the services that had failed. So the lighting, the electrics and the plan were set together and from scratch, rather than fitted around what was already there.
The second condition came from the client: he asked for some of the furniture to be kept. It was taken out before the strip-out, moved to storage and checked in against an inventory, with the condition of every piece recorded. The constraint worked both ways: some decisions had to follow the surviving pieces, but the house kept a link with what it had been.
The third condition is not measured in metres. After an accident caused by someone else's failure, the client is particularly attentive to what backs up a decision. There is one answer to that: the drawing. Work can be signed off against a drawing rather than judged by eye.
Concept
The house is handled in an elegant contemporary key: clear proportions, quiet discipline, the sense that every object stands where it should. There is no historical pastiche; the character is carried by material and light rather than by decoration.
The base of the palette is milk-beige, almost monochrome, and four accents work against it. Herringbone timber runs through the whole house: in the open plan the pattern of the floor takes on the zoning. Pale stone with golden veining appears as a large slab, and only where it will be looked at. The metal is warm, copper and bronze; there is no chrome in the house. Terracotta is the only colour, and it lives in the textiles.
The lighting was chosen as an object rather than a source of illumination: in every room the fitting reads as a thing in its own right. The furniture is soft in form, with rounded silhouettes that take the dryness out of the straight lines.
Result
A sketch design for every room and a full set of interior working drawings: plans, wall elevations, details, lighting and electrical layouts.
The furniture kept at the client's request was given a place in the new interior, set out in the plans and elevations rather than fitted in afterwards.
After a flood, most houses are returned to what they were. Here it was not a repair of the damage but a different interior, one that could be designed as a whole rather than pieced into what was left.
Trust metrics
247 m²
total floor area
Design area: 240.6 m².
Floor plan of the project “Design project for a house, 247 m²”
- 1.1Entrance hall — 14.5 m²
- 1.2Bathroom — 6.0 m²
- 1.3Living room — 73.2 m²
- 1.4Room — 11.3 m²
- 1.5Boiler room — 6.9 m²
- 2.1Stair hall — 12.6 m²
- 2.2Master bathroom — 9.2 m²
- 2.4Master bedroom — 31.5 m²
- 2.5Guest bedroom — 21.6 m²
- 2.7Corridor — 3.2 m²
- 2.8Dressing room — 5.8 m²
- 2.9Bathroom 2 — 11.1 m²
- 2.10Children's bedroom — 20.9 m²
- 2.11Master dressing room — 5.7 m²
Zones of the project “Design project for a house, 247 m²”
01 Rooms
Entrance hall
The entrance works as a passage rather than a porch. The floor is terrazzo: stone aggregate in a binder, a pattern that never repeats and never shows the wear of a thoroughfare.
An oval mirror and a chest of drawers in the tone of the walls continue the calm line. There is nothing here that need not be.
In a country house the entrance hall takes everything: snow, sand, mud off the road. Terrazzo survives all of it without showing a mark.
02 Rooms
Kitchen-living room
The shared space of the ground floor: the dining table under a ring pendant, the kitchen run, the way through to the living area.
There are no partitions; the floor has taken on their role. The herringbone binds the areas into one and at the same time sets the direction of movement.
The open plan is not broken up by partitions, yet every area still reads: at the table you do not feel you are sitting in a passage.
03 Rooms
Living room
Sofas and armchairs with soft rounded forms gather around low tables. Behind them stands the staircase with its clear balustrade: it neither blocks the room nor takes its light.
Copper pendants give warmth against the milk-beige ground. Terracotta in the textiles remains the only colour in the room.
04 Rooms
Kitchen
The stone splashback with its golden veining runs the full height of the wall, the one surface in the house allowed to speak loudly.
Everything else is deliberately quiet: smooth handle-less fronts, an island with a worktop, integrated appliances. The dining table is set by the window.
05 Rooms
Stair hall
A scatter of copper spheres above the staircase and the oval of the mirror turn the passage into a scene of its own. The clear balustrade keeps the light coming through, and the herringbone floor continues the line of the ground floor.
06 Rooms
Guest bedroom
Behind the headboard is a wallpaper panel with a botanical pattern in gold paint. In raking light it comes forward, seen straight on it almost disappears, and the wall changes with the course of the day.
A cloud-shaped shade, a lit niche, a desk by the window. The room suits a guest and the owners equally well.
07 Rooms
Master bedroom
Here the architecture of the house speaks louder than the finishes. The open timber rafters of the pitched roof are left as they are and the room is built around them: a slatted wall at the head of the bed, bouclé armchairs by the window, warm light running along the rafters.
The most domestic room in the project, and the least like the others.
The rafters were deliberately left open: a suspended ceiling would have taken the height, and with it the whole volume that makes an attic storey worth living in.
08 Rooms
Children's room
The same device as in the guest bedroom, a tone lighter: a wallpaper panel with a botanical pattern in gold. A round mirror, niches for books, a desk in the corner.
There is nothing here tied to an age: no one will have to move the child out of this room in three years.
09 Rooms
Guest bathroom
Large-format stone-effect tiling, open timber shelves, wall-hung furniture. A shower without a tray behind a glass screen, an alabaster shade, an oval mirror: the same language as the living rooms.
10 Rooms
Master bathroom, ribbed wall
The shower wall is laid in a ribbed texture that catches the side light. The room comes out intimate and warm, in keeping with the attic bedroom it opens from.
11 Rooms
Master bathroom, stone wall
The shower wall is a pale stone slab with golden veining, the same stone as the kitchen splashback. One large material instead of an assortment of finishes: light and quiet.
12 Rooms
Bathroom
A compact room in warm beige: walls and floor in one tone, round lights, timber in the finishes. Handled as evenly as the rest of the house, with no attempt to make an accent out of a small floor area.
Your project
Discuss your idea
Leave your phone number and we'll get back to you within one working day.
- —We'll go over the brief, floor area and timeline
- —We'll walk you through our ways of working and a cost estimate
- —We'll suggest solutions that fit your budget
- —Whether to go ahead is entirely up to you
Documents
Sample documents
This is what the documents you receive look like.
Technical documentation
Interior working drawings
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FAQ
Frequently asked questions about the project
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about the project
What does a design project for a 250 m² house cost?
It is calculated by floor area, scope of work and level of detail. On a house like this, 247 m², two storeys with an attic and entirely new services, the documentation runs to noticeably more than for an apartment of the same size. We put the exact figure together after an inspection and a survey.
After a flood, restore the old interior or design a new one?
It depends on what has survived. Here the finishes were taken back to brick, floors, walls, ceilings and services, and there was nothing left to restore. When the structure and the openings remain but everything inside has gone, it pays to design the whole thing: otherwise new decisions have to be fitted into the remains of the old ones and the house ends up a compromise.
Can you incorporate existing furniture into a new design?
Yes, provided it is recorded before the strip-out. Here the furniture was removed in advance, moved to storage and checked in against an inventory with the condition of every piece noted, and its dimensions went into the plans before finishing began. That way a piece is given a place in the design instead of the interior being adjusted around it after the fact.
What is included in working drawings for a house?
Plans, wall elevations, details, lighting and electrical layouts: the documents work can be signed off against rather than judged by eye. This project produced a sketch design for every room and a full set of working drawings; after the accident it mattered to the client that every decision was backed by a document.
How does house design differ from apartment design?
Geometry and services. A house brings a pitched attic roof, a staircase, changes of level and services of its own, and none of it can be moved the way a partition can in an apartment. The plan has to be built inside what the building dictates, and there are more sections of documentation.
How do you design an attic storey under a pitched roof?
From the geometry that survived. The pitches, the position of the staircase and the window openings determine where furniture will stand and what the height is at any point, so the layout and the lighting are worked out together with them rather than afterwards. In this house the lighting, the electrics and the plan were set together and from scratch, because the old services had been removed entirely.