Cherry Ground

A modern extension and renovation of a semi-detached rural cottage on the edge of the Dedham Vale National Landscape overlooking agricultural fields and orchards.  The client wished to enlarge and improved living areas and enable a better connection to and views of the surrounding gardens and landscape.

The new ground floor plan is organised around a generous new entrance inserted at one end of the existing cottage and connecting it to a new kitchen & dining side wing extension.  The layout and circulation within the cottage, which had been previously extended on multiple occasions, was rationalised by selective alterations which helped to unify the previously disjunct accommodation, including a carefully crafted reversal of the stair direction without disruption to the rooms of the first floor above.  The resulting arrangement provides well-proportioned and practical spaces which are both functional and celebratory.

To compliment the tones of the adjoining thatched cottage, a pale palette was applied using standing seam metal roofing and two types of monochromatic horizontal and vertical timber cladding to create cohesion while regulating scale and maintaining subtle distinction between historic fabric and modern volumes.

Photography  Cristina Granena