Bohemia House

A modern home with an explicit connection to nature. Our client bought the existing bungalow primarily for location, but also fell in love with the mature garden. Their brief was to reconfigure the existing house to provide better visual and physical connection to the garden, maximise natural light into the key spaces and create a home for entertaining. DLM was asked to consider a modest frontage, in keeping with the character of the houses that surround it, with an unexpected impact once you stepped inside. The neighbouring properties both extend deeper into the site than the original house, and this gave the perception of being overlooked. Our proposal stripped back the bungalow to the original pitched form, allowing retention of most of the existing structure, with a complete upgrade of thermal linings and services offering what is essentially a new-build house with significantly reduced demolition waste. Two cedar-clad pitched volumes are offset from each boundary, screening the neighbouring buildings, forming a tapered courtyard between and focusing views down the garden from deep within the plan. These pitched volumes are informed by the proportion of the original, with eaves and ridge heights altered to allow the low winter sun into the courtyard, and to provide a varying internal volume that responds to the use within. A lightweight flat roof and full-height glazing links the forms, and identifies the points of entry, drawing you in through the inverse space between each mass. Despite the apparently simple interior, every detail was a complex procedure to produce what appears an effortless solution. The finish is a clean and crisp palette of subtle tones and textures, with highlights of bespoke joinery left in a natural finish. A neutral canvas, with life and colour introduced by the homeowners and their furnishings, the framed views of the landscape and changing seasonal light. Bohemia is our client’s home, precisely refined to meet their lifestyle and personal tastes. Over the coming years it will weather externally, evolve internally, and adapt to suit their varying needs through life. The pitched volumes of varied scale and proportion are arranged around the flat roof that links them, providing a broken and playful mass. The size, height, pitch, orientation, and distance between each are designed to avoid shade, allowing the winter sunlight to flood the courtyard and the last of the evening sun to squeeze between into the garden, to block the adjacent neighbours and to control views down the garden. Punctured by large panels of glazing, positioned to inform internal function, and maximise connection to the outside, but to provide privacy without the need for blinds. Without downlights, methods to deliver the light had to be developed; floating ceilings, vertical rebates and recessed skirtings all provide niches for lighting to be concealed. Hidden doors and storage within iroko joinery, plywood end grain fabricated to seamless wardrobes and vanity units, with bespoke steel frames to support, span and frame screens, mirrors, and joinery. Every element of this home has been considered, drawn and beautifully crafted.