Brooke Coombes Self-Build House
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The house in its suburban context
Charlotte Wood (website) Download Original
Self-build low energy house in a conservation area in Ealing, using many key elements of the Segal Method
The house is set out on a grid and arranged according to a straightforward diagram: the accommodation is on one side of the site, and is as compact as possible, leaving room for a glazed courtyard on the other.
The two-storey, enclosed side of the house contains an open-plan kitchen/dining/living room and a study on the ground floor, and bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs. It is surrounded by thick walls to the north, east and west. The courtyard is flanked by a glazed wall to the house on one side, and a brick ‘garden wall’ to the other. It contains the staircase and a small mezzanine sitting area – both of which are galvanised steel.
The process of simplification also applies to the structural approach – the ground conditions made piles preferable to slab foundations, which suited a steel frame.
The steel frame is spanned by Masonite timber studs, enclosed in timber sheathing. This, in turn, is ‘wrapped’ with a clay-tile cladding system which is both easy to install and precise – the client was determined to avoid the ‘folksiness’ often associated with self-build.
Data
- Begun: Sep 1999
- Completed: 2001
- Floor area: 203m2
- Sectors: Residential, House
- Total cost: £310,874
- Tender date: Aug 1999
- Procurement: Self-build with package procurement of specialist elements
- Address: Ealing, London, W5, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: Burd Haward Architects
- Project architects: Buddy Haward, Catherine Burd, Lucy Marston
- Client: John Brooke and Carol Coombes
- Quantity surveyor: Moulton Taggart
- Services engineer: Max Fordham and Partners: David Litters
- Structural engineer: Elliott Wood Partnership
Suppliers
- Steel frame: Panbridge Construction
- External terracotta tiles: James and Taylor
- Warmcell insulation and Masonite beams: Fillcrete
- Steel stair: Biz Engineering