Chimes House
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One-bedroom house designed around a music room for two pianos
The house is built on a disused builder’s yard adjacent to a 14th century church in an Environment Agency Flood Zone 3. Within this restricted curtilage the deisgn of the house is inspired by music and capturing light.
The new floor is built off the existing slab and hardstanding in layers of compacted recycled material within a brickwork perimeter wall, that established a working platform for the timber framed house. This avoided a major dig, flood risk, party wall acts and landfill costs, with all the services being ducted under the slab.
Plywood ‘I’ wall stud construction filled with sheep’s wool insulation was used, with Kerto floor and roof joists and a sedum-covered single-ply roof membrane topped with photovoltaics.
Internally the house is finished with lime-waxed plywood and larch floorboards.
Data
- Begun: Jul 2012
- Completed: Sep 2013
- Floor area: 110m2
- Sector: House
- Total cost: £295,000
- Procurement: JCT Intermediate
- Address: Exeter, United Kingdom
Professional Team
- Architect: David Sheppard Architects
- Client: Private
- Structural engineer: Structural Solutions
- Quantity surveyor: HartQS
- Main contractor: Sherwell Valley Builders