Following our interview with Ström Architects about the value of photo-realistic visualisations, the firm sent us a set of images by rendering guru Peter Guthrie showing a house proposed for Suffolk, England (+ slideshow).
Two miles from the coast in the southern English county of Suffolk, the 2.5 hectare site is located in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and surrounded by farmland.
British studio Ström Architects designed the house to be built over foundations of a previous structure that burnt down, beside an existing outdoor pool.
It will be orientated at an angle to the ruins, to make a clear distinction between the two and to face the best views.
"The building is set like this so that it can be read on its own and thus touch the existing site lightly," said the architects.
Flooding is prevalent in the area so the home will be raised 1.5 metres off the ground, with a ramped walkway following the geometry of the old building connecting it to the garden.
The design is long and thin to reference the local vernacular, with glazing along most of the west elevation. Dark wood panels will cover rest of this facade, while Corten steel is to clad the other three sides.
All the rooms are on the ground floor apart from the master bedroom and bathroom, which will fit into the small volume on the roof. Construction is due to start later this year.
The renderings were produced by visualisation artists Peter Guthrie, who is considered one of the leading exponents of photo-realistic architectural imagery. Guthrie is the mentor of UK architect Henry Goss, whose renderings of a proposed house in southern England stunned Dezeen readers earlier this month. Read our interview with Goss.
Check out Goss's renderings of another English house by Ström Architects and read the interview in which the studio claims that investing in quality computer generated imagery (CGI) is "more effective than advertising".
We recently published an archive of all the most convincing renders on Dezeen, which includes CGIs of a Norwegian hunting lodge, the new National Gallery of Greenland and Renzo Piano's The Shard in London.
See more hyper-realistic renderings »
See more buildings in Suffolk »
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More information from Ström Architects follows.
Private House, Suffolk, UK
The site is located in Suffolk two miles inland the coast, and lies within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The site itself forms part of an overall land ownership of 2.5 hectares surrounded by agricultural land.
The current site has foundations, ruins and some low walls from a house that burned down eight years ago; there is also an existing outdoor pool. Immediately to the west of the pool and ruins, there is a small area of open grass that runs up to the edge of a beautiful copse of mature oak trees. The site is located on the edge of flood zone two and three, and requires a raised floor level 1.5 metres above the old cottage.
The clients' brief was for a country house – 'a dream in a wood', a peaceful place to relax, regenerate, and think of new ideas. The existing site with the pool, ruins and low walls has a very strong presence, and we wanted to keep this as an important part of the site. The design is linear and has picked up on the building form – the 'long cottage' found in the locality, and we see the design as an evolution of the longitudinal cottage.
The building sits above the ruins and the edge of the pool, as to respect the current site, but also to deal with the raised floor level that is required, due to the potential flood risk. The building is also set like this so that it can be read on its own, and thus touch the existing site lightly. The building is orientated towards the west-south-west, and sits on an angle above the existing ruins facing the best views as well as creating a clear juxtaposition of geometry to the ruins.
A two-storey element punctures through the roof, and contains a master bedroom suite at the first floor. This is positioned towards the existing coach house, thus minimising the impact of the building on the more open site to the south. This two storey element is recessed from both the west and east facades as to reduce the scale and the appearance of the building.
The building is entered via a bridge that spans from higher ground and above the ruins. This sets up the whole philosophy of the house, even before you actually enter, as well as successfully dealing with safe egress form the house to higher land in case of a flood.