A young couple keen to build a house in the wife’s childhood home of Portloe, Cornwall, approached us to secure planning consent on a brownfield site just above the main village.
Their ambition was to build a new 4-bedroom contemporary home embedded in the landscape with minimal impact on the surrounding environment.
The hillside site is visible from the village, which itself is a designated Conservation Area and within the Cornwall National Landscape.
Having experienced setbacks through the planning process, we took a direct approach to collaborating with planning officers, resulting in positive and constructive engagement.
In partnership with Cornwall-based RA Studio, we developed designs for a low, linear house running parallel to the contour lines of the hillside to sit comfortably within the site topography.
The contemporary building responds to the character of the village, wrapped within a landscaped stone and planted wall and topped by a locally sourced slate roof – allowing the building to blend into the surrounding hillside.
Pitched rooflines feature north-light glazing to allow natural light into living spaces without windows being visible from the village, particularly at night.
An inbuilt approach to sustainability achieves Passivhaus equivalent standards of thermal insulation and air tightness with servicing designed for heat recovery, air source heat pumps and photovoltaic panels.
Our holistic approach will also naturally restore and create habitats for a wide range of local plant and animal species.
At a time when young people are typically moving out of rural villages, this contemporary home will allow three generations of the same family to stay and enrich the Portloe community.
Through close collaboration with local planners, we were able to gain consent under delegated powers and make this family’s vision a reality.
