Origami House

The site backs onto a church and is located within a sensitive Conservation area, in the garden of a listed house. The sculptural Origami geometry was inspired by the retained irregular foundation footprint of a previous ugly garden studio which the new building replaces. This self-contained dwelling provides not only a starter home for adult children, but space for visiting family, those who are shielding and WFH during lockdown.

The ingenuity of ‘Origami’ House lies in using CLT to form a striking ‘Origami’ folded plate structure with no need for beams, and minimum internal finishes since the beauty of the CLT structural timber panels is on show. This creates a dramatic sculptural quality produced by the clever interaction of the simple CLT wall geometry with the triangulated folded roof forms. CLT also allowed for a fast build craning in the jigsaw puzzle of timber panels within 5 days.

The precision of the CLT kit of parts allowed pre-fabrication of aluminium doors, windows and roof lights to be fitted immediately the structure was complete. The cedar cladding/interior fit out quickly followed to achieve a weather tight structure within a week. The CLT structure allowed us to adopt sustainability principles used for ‘Passivhaus’ standards, e.g. ultra air tightness, super insulation, triple glazing and MVHR.