Richmond Road

This new dwelling was for a long time client of Clayland. We had done plenty of build work and some construction drawings in the past but this was to be the first time that we had designed this client a dwelling from scratch. The client had a budget of £100k for the main build (interior finish being additional), and the client had very specific requirements for how she wanted the house to feel, this being the last house she was wanting to build.

The design had to turn its back upon the main road and shield the interior for the bright lights of passing cars. The houses had to make the best use of the views to the south over the clients fields, and the layout of the house needed to focus around a central living space that was to be the hub of the dwelling.  The client likes industrial Victorian architecture as well as contemporary and wanted to use the textures and colours of traditional Norfolk construction materials. The result is a very simple yet striking building, which from the road looks more like a brick barn than a house, yet this similarly was born out of the function of the dwelling and its materials and not as a pastiche of existing rural buildings. The small side entrance (a simple door with no porch canopy) leads to a small utilitarian hall with a small diamond window, but this then opens out into the grand double height space that is the centre of the building. The rooms at the first floor are either side of this space and are connected by a bridge like walkway. The interior uses exposed brickwork and a Victorian inspired metal staircase alongside more contemporary details such as polished concrete floors and worktops, sliding frameless doors and bold colours.