Secular Retreat

One of seven new-build houses designed by prestigious architects as holiday rental properties for Living Architecture.  This project was conceived as a place that a group of like-minded people could visit to relax and perhaps work together.  Guests share a large living space planned around expansive views across the South Devon landscape.

The structures are built up with a series of massive rammed concrete walls supporting overlapping roof plates, which are of reinforced concrete.  The desired architectural expression was that both the top and bottom surfaces of the roof plates were of concrete and so they were formed of two layers with load-bearing insulation between.  To avoid cold bridging the top layer cantilevers past the glazing line, which is set in from the plate perimeters.

Structural engineering by Jane Wernick Associates, now part of engineersHRW.