Designed by Alma-nac, Split House is a contemporary private house on a coastal hilltop in Fairlight, Rother. The client, a couple well engaged with the local community, wanted to build a through-life house that would engage with the surrounding landscape, with a construction process that would draw from the local trades.

Informed by the brief for such a sustainable home that would celebrate its hilltop site, Split House is defined by orientating key internal spaces towards one of the series of outstanding surrounding views: a wildflower valley, the immediate coast, the neighboring village of Pett and the headland of Dungeness.
Photography: Jack Hobhouse
In responding directly towards these views, and sheltering from the prevailing winds, the volume of the building is naturally fragmented. The resulting form provides a clearly delineated public side, facing the adjacent houses and wind protected private side, open to the wildflower meadow.
Timetable

From winning the client led invited competition to submit for planning approval took 6 months, with construction starting approximately one year later in June 2012. Astringent costing exercise was undertaken during this process, in an effort to reach the client’s budgetary target while delivering a fixed area and provision schedule.

The building is a highly insulated steel superframe with timber infill set over a concrete pool base and slab, a method chosen as being the most efficient in dealing with the large cantileve...