Caring Wood Residence, English Home, Architects, Property, Photos, Designs, News, Architecture Images
Caring Wood Residence in South East England
Rural Home in southeast England, UK – design by Macdonald Wright Architects
8 Nov 2017
Caring Wood Residence
Design: Macdonald Wright Architects
Location: South East England
Caring Wood is one of two of the UK?s best new homes shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year award

This unique house seeks to re-envisage the traditional ?English country house? in the 21st century to meet the needs of three generations of the same family. The jury was impressed with how Macdonald Wright and Maxwell had manipulated space and scale to balance the need for grandeur with intimacy ? from the soaring spaces of the piano nobile to the living spaces partially embedded in the hillside below. As a result, the two architects have designed a house of over 1,400 sqm which nevertheless feels like a home.
The house is modern but has clear links to the Kentish rural vernacular and local building traditions. Externally, the form of the house uses the traditional oast house as a form generator which would have been used for kilning hops as part of the brewing process. On entering, there is a framed view of a traditional oast in the distance. The house comprises four towers with an interlinking roof and these are sentry points in the landscape with distinct personalities.

The jury were also impressed with the quality of the build, the level of crafts...