Silver House

Located on the dramatic wind-swept coastline of the Gower Peninsula, South Wales, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The home is perched up high on a limestone cliff where the Bristol Channel meets the Atlantic Ocean.

The client brief was simple; to provide a deeply personalized and contextual home that would accommodate the work/life balance of a family’s needs, relocating from London to find solitude.

The embedded visual iconography of the home captures the remote coastal nature of the site, the vernacular heritage nearby and the need to respond to the frequent brutal weather fronts that pass over. The architecture of the home confronts these powerful elements and portrays a conscious metaphysical awareness of these forces through an authentic and robust material palate, along with bold and confident roof forms that acknowledge the presence of the wind and the direction of the ocean.

The internal programme responds to the contextual limits imposed upon the site, both pragmatic and poetic. The position of the house is defined by the existing entrance and planning constraints influenced the relationship of the home to adjoining owners, window distances and dominant views south to the ocean.

The structural logic of the home is a conversation between light and heavy building elements – tectonic v’s stereotomic; reinforcing a specific atmosphere on each level.

The timber beam separating layer symbolically reinforces the buildings separation of programme; breaking its mass, creating a low profile with a confident sense of orientation and purpose. The heavy material language of the ground floor externally responds to the local medieval tradition of dry-stone walling. Sharply defined portal windows with integrated seating and the solidity of concrete add to a heightened sense of domicile and protection.

Living spaces are found at first floor resting on exposed timber beams which reference the tectonic construction of nearby agricultural buildings.

The internal programme reacts to the shifting coastal light throughout the day. The kitchen is located towards the rising sun, living spaces for midday, with the master bedroom facing the located towards the rising sun, living spaces for midday, with the master bedroom facing the setting sun.

Hyde + Hyde Architects
Interior Design: Bracey Interiors Ltd

Contractor: James Developments Ltd
Energy Consultant: Melin
Quantity Surveyor: Ivor Russell Partnership