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Contents
The Brief
Site Analysis
Concepts
2
3
4
Precedents 5
Initial Ideas 7
Idea Development 9
Roof 13
Materials 14
Model Photos 15
Drawings 17
Perspectives 27

Ibstock has asked several architects to design ‘model’ homes using
masonry construction. They are being built as exhibition houses
but will be built to last and become permanent homes for people.
using
masonry construction.
The sites for the houses have been masterplanned to incorporate a
shared courtyard. Each pair of houses will share a 6m x 6m court-
yard. When the houses are sold the idea is that residents will buy
into this idea of ‘shared’ living.
The internal floor area of the house should not exceed 130m ow-
2
ing to budgetary constraints.
The schemes are all to be designed to appeal to people who wish
to live in a modern house which encapsulates a certain type of 21st
Century living.
The house must accommodate at least the following:
- A place, or places, to prepare and eat food
- A place, or places, to wash and defecate
- A place, or places, for all occupants to sleep
- Accommodation for a guest couple, ideally with separate washing
facilities
The Brief
The husband is a mathematician, full time employed, however
working from home is an option to him. The wife is a soon-to-be-
mum, with a passion for cooking and photography. These charac-
teristics may influence the design of the house.
My clients require a three bedroom house. However, due to the
current situation, only one is needed, with two being required once
the child is born. The third is incase a second child joins the young
family.
Because of this, it would be useful to have a third bedroom that can
be used as an office for the time until the second child. It would be
helpful if this was slightly away from the rest of the house, in a well
lit room.
As the mothers hobby of photography is space consuming, it would
be useful if a room could be converted into a studio space. As it
is only a hobby, the family cannot justify spending the space on a
dedicated studio.

The external wall thickness will be 450mm as the sponsors would

like to demonstrate that the house of the future will be a heavily
insulated building.

The masterplan for the whole ‘exhibition’ site has paired plots
around a shared 6m x 6m landscaped space with a tree in it.
There are views to the south over a landscaped park, and the
paired houses are laid out so that light can enter the plots from the
east and west. However, the passage between plots is a
public footpath leading into the park.

2
Site Analysis

The sunpath diagram above shows that in summer the

buildings site stands in the way of the sun reaching the
courtyard during morning hours. The building should be
low towards the south in order to let more light in to the
courtyard, and the neighbouring building.
View to the Country Park
The view in all other directions is either facing
the neighbouring buildings, or the road.

3
 Concepts
Density.
Through reducing the amount of masonry
and solid walls towards the courtyard,
focus will be drawn towards it, as well as
increasing privacy towards the exterior.

Mathematical Derivation.
One of the clients has requested
that the design of the house
should be derived rationally,,
through use of equation or similar..

Neighbours.
It is critical to my clients that they are good
neighbours, meaning that the building
should attempt to not infringe on their
neighbours sunlight, views or privacy.

Privacy vs Openness.
Whilst the clients have stated they
want a house with strong connections
to the outdoors and neighbours, this
must be carefully balanced with the
need for privacy when necessary..

4
Precedents
For the 1958 Expo in Brussels, Iannis Xena-
kis designed a pavillon in which he composed
music, and the building in which it was to be
played. The pavilion is a cluster of nine hyper-
bolic paraboloid in which music was spatialized
by sound projectionists using telephone dials.
The straight lines combined to create smooth
undulating curves.

Building: Philips Pavilion

Architects: Iannis Xenakis, Le Corbusier Office
Year: 1958

Gillespie, Kidd and Coia were well known for

constructing many modern masonry churches
throughout Scottland. I chose this example due
to the innovative and striking roof, and the solid-
ity of the masonry, using both materials to their
fullest potential.

Building:St Benedict’s Church

Architects: Gillespie, Kidd and Coia
Year: 1965/1970

5
 Precedents

Danish Architectural firm BIG have

become world renowned for creating
beautiful buildings strongly influenced
by clear rationale. In this example, the
buildings shape was inspired by the fact
that as much sunlight as possible was
to enter the courtyard, as well as max-
imising views for the residents of flats.

Building: 8-House
Architects: Bjarke Ingels Group
Year: 2010

Santiago Calatrava is an architect who initially

trained as an engineer. His architecture is
thus very mathematically inspired. The roof of
this museum, many straight louvres open up
like wings, creating a beautiful curved shape
made from straight lines.

Building: Milwaukee Art Museum

Architects: Santiago Calatrava
Year: 2001

6
Initial Ideas
These initial designs were all created using some
kind of formula or similar rationale.

Initially I started with Danish Zoning laws, seeing if

going to the limits of this created expressive volumes
suitable for construction in masonry.

After this I tried some “formulas” of my own. The for-

mulas were all meant to maximise sunlight and/or
views for the courtyard, the neighbour and the house.

Block Carved to Maximise the Views

of Country Park from Courtyard Level

3m + 80% of the Distance to the Neighbour

7
 Initial Ideas

45° from Ground Level 45° from 1m above Ground Level

Constant Angle from 12m to Ground Level Around the Perimeter of the SIte

8
Idea Development

I decided to take this idea further. The slope of

the roof towards the south, as well as in to the
courtyard means that maximum sunlight is al-
lowed into the courtyard. The high North wall,
and relatively high East wall mean that noise
and overlooking from the neighbours and road
are kept to a minimum.

The internal layout of the buildings of ex-

actly one and a half floors, or four and a half
squarea, also gives the maximum floor area of
130m2. The other designs also created shapes
that were unsuitable as masonry buildings,
too large or impractical for floor plans.

This buidling shape however, created very

awkward apce towards the south, where the
ceiling gets too low to be useful space. By
picking up the corner, this space is made use-
ful whilst retaining a shape that allows light
into the couryard.

9
 Idea Development

The above rendering shows that while the ample glazing on the west
side fills the ground floor with light, the first floor is very dark, not re-
cieving enough natural light.
Ground Floor First Floor
Below shows how the glazing facing the courtyard brings the outside
in.

10
Idea Development

A single large block of 6 x 18m.

The fenestration is aligned in a way that
causes “focus” on the shared courtyard.
The end facing the park
gets lowered. This caus-
es more sunlight to enter
the courtyard, as well as
views being increased
for both houses. The end
facing the road kept high
in order to increase floor
area, as well as reflecting
noise from passing traffic,
and making the courtyard
a more private place.

By lowering the western side

further, more light is allowed
to flood the courtyard, whilst
also increasing views of the sky
whilst in the courtyard and for the

Due to this having decreased the

light entering the top floor, one side
gets lifted, allowing much more views
and light from the top floor, whilst not
greatly affecting the courtyard.
Views

11
 Idea Development
The passageway for
the family is straight
through the house.

The “Void” space in the centre of the building adapts to what is going
on inside the building. Above in red, it can become an extension of
the children’s bedroom, creating a space where the mother can keep
an eye on them from above due to the open nature of the top floor.

Bottom, in green the diagram displays how opening the west side doors
can allow the void to become an extension of the courtyard/garden.

Bedroom ideally suited for

office space. Lots of sun-
light, and far from the center
of activity of the house, and
sound isolated.
The stairs being right
next to the entrance
man that any visi-
tors do not have to go
through the “private”
parts of the building to
reach the “public” part.

12
Roof

Drawing lines
perpendicular to the
slope of the roof, it
becomes apparent
that the more lines
are added, the
more it becomes
like an undulating
mesh as opposed
to individual beams.
An analysis of the resulting slopes of the individual “beams” shows
that water run-off would be as in the above diagram. In the four low-
est points of the roof, columns mean that internal gutters can get
rid of the rainfall, without ruining the clean aesthetic of the exterior.

Roof Detail Drainage

1:20 Insulation

Precast Block
Concrete Portland Stone

13

Stone
The stone I chose to clad my building is
a light cream coloured limestone called
Portland Stone. This is a stone that has
been used in construction for centuries,.
The light colour will cause the building to
not overpower its surroundings. The very
flush joints that are possible between the
stones mean that the building will look
like it is carved out of one large block.
Glass
The glass that will be used for all
the glazing, both external as well as
internal, will be smart glass. Also known
as switchable glass, it changes light
transmission properties depending on
the voltage being passed through it. This
means that even with large amounts of
glass facing the courtyard, the glass can
be made translucent iff privacy is required.
Materials
Roofing
The concrete Roof will be clad in Zinc. Zinc
will cause the roof to weather better than
the concrete would, as well as creating an
aesthetic combination together with the
stone. It is also a metal that is malleable
enough to take on the shape of the roof.
14
Model Photos

15
Model Photos

16
17 Site Plan
Perspective Section

18
19 North Elevation
East Elevation 20
21 West Elevation
South Elevation 22
Ground Floor Plan

23
First Floor Plan

24
25 Long section
Short Section 26
27 External Perspective
Internal Perspective 28