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Hammer Hill
Hammer Hill
Norfolk, England, United Kingdom
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Other Projects by Alexander Hills Architects
Hammer Hill
Norfolk, England, United Kingdom
Type
STATUS
Under Construction
YEAR
2024
BUDGET
$100K - 500K
Built in the 1970s as a retirement house for the former owner of Old Rectory Farm, this project shares many traits with its bigger neighbour but in a more isolated and condensed form.
Set on a surrounding rise looking down the Glaven Valley, the architecture follows that of the original 19th C pig yard that it is connected to but with none of the charm, proportion and patina of those brick and flint rubble walls. It is arranged as one ‘main’ house of three storeys connected at ground floor with a smaller single-volume ‘barn room’, entered via the yard to the north with the principle elevations facing west and east.
Though the settling is idyllic, the arrangement of the existing house is problematic, hindering the free flow between principle rooms and the garden alongside quantities of dead space inside that distort use and confuse function. Together with the necessity of replacing all the window casements (all had rotted) we proposed a more radical approach to the project than might otherwise be considered.
Our response was to re-centre the enlarged kitchen more centrally on the ground plan, reduce circulation space, open up the stairwell to allow light in from the second floor, replacing the steep stairs and creating more points of egress from the main rooms to the west. To mediate this passage, we proposed a wraparound open veranda of green oak frame and metal corrugate – reminiscent of farm building utility – to create a supporting liminal space and flow to the building’s function.
Central to the client’s brief was an increase in the numbers it could sleep, in addition to making all bedrooms ensuite, which required an extensive internal refurbishment alongside two new extensions. The main new addition between the two existing buildings offers two new bedrooms alongside a shower room with the small extension to the north acting as a visual totem of the entrance with a bathroom above a hall. Both extensions were designed to be mono-pitched ‘wings’ off the main house, though this was revised to make the smaller of the two more in keeping with the veranda.
Our design for all new construction was founded on the need to use as much local wood as possible, enabling a more pleasant internal environment (in it being more breatherable) as well as have lower embodied carbon in order that we might achieve our Architect’s Declare pledge. We enabled this by employing a wood-fibre insulated stud, clad in oak shingles with a lime finished surface internally.
Currently going through tender, we aim to start on site by December 2023.
Set on a surrounding rise looking down the Glaven Valley, the architecture follows that of the original 19th C pig yard that it is connected to but with none of the charm, proportion and patina of those brick and flint rubble walls. It is arranged as one ‘main’ house of three storeys connected at ground floor with a smaller single-volume ‘barn room’, entered via the yard to the north with the principle elevations facing west and east.
Though the settling is idyllic, the arrangement of the existing house is problematic, hindering the free flow between principle rooms and the garden alongside quantities of dead space inside that distort use and confuse function. Together with the necessity of replacing all the window casements (all had rotted) we proposed a more radical approach to the project than might otherwise be considered.
Our response was to re-centre the enlarged kitchen more centrally on the ground plan, reduce circulation space, open up the stairwell to allow light in from the second floor, replacing the steep stairs and creating more points of egress from the main rooms to the west. To mediate this passage, we proposed a wraparound open veranda of green oak frame and metal corrugate – reminiscent of farm building utility – to create a supporting liminal space and flow to the building’s function.
Central to the client’s brief was an increase in the numbers it could sleep, in addition to making all bedrooms ensuite, which required an extensive internal refurbishment alongside two new extensions. The main new addition between the two existing buildings offers two new bedrooms alongside a shower room with the small extension to the north acting as a visual totem of the entrance with a bathroom above a hall. Both extensions were designed to be mono-pitched ‘wings’ off the main house, though this was revised to make the smaller of the two more in keeping with the veranda.
Our design for all new construction was founded on the need to use as much local wood as possible, enabling a more pleasant internal environment (in it being more breatherable) as well as have lower embodied carbon in order that we might achieve our Architect’s Declare pledge. We enabled this by employing a wood-fibre insulated stud, clad in oak shingles with a lime finished surface internally.
Currently going through tender, we aim to start on site by December 2023.
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