red kite, berkshire
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red kite is a design for a one-off country house in the berkshire hills, developed for a private client. new homes in open countryside are normally refused. the exception is paragraph 55 of the national planning policy framework (nppf), now paragraph 84, which allows them only where the design is truly exceptional and innovative.
we set out to show what meeting that test could look like. the design grows out of its landscape. a timber gridshell roof clad in bronze shingles recalls the wings of the red kites circling over the hills, while much of the accommodation sits quietly below ground.
exceptional is a planning requirement, not an aspiration.
paragraph 55 sets one of the highest design bars in the planning system. answering it takes a clear narrative, real innovation and a building that enhances its setting. it rewards exactly the thinking that drives all our work.
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sunk into the hill
only the top floor would show above ground: a broad open-plan space under the sweep of the roof. bedroom suites, staff and guest quarters, parking and a sunken arrival courtyard sit below, keeping the visible building modest.
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a gridshell roof
the roof is a gridshell (a lattice of thin timber laths bent into a curved, self-supporting shell). clad in overlapping bronze shingles, it takes on the form and texture of outstretched feathers.
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designing to paragraph 55
paragraph 55 asks for design that is truly outstanding. we built the scheme around one strong idea, the bird that gives the house its name, and backed it with structural innovation, so the planning case and the architecture tell the same story.
