SIPs built Courtyard House progress

The construction of Courtyard House has come on impressively since we were last onsite to visit. In the past three weeks the house build has progressed from just the finished concrete slab, to now having all the external and internal walls in place, and with most of the roof installed.

The house is being built using Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) a high performing composite building system which can be used as an alternative to traditional building methods. One of the key benefits of using this system is the speed of construction onsite, as they are made offsite to exact measurements, which means the time needed onsite is vastly reduced, on average down by 55% from traditional construction methods.

You can really start to see our initial concept designs starting to take shape on site, check out the comparision photos and you can find more project details here. 

Judging Homebuilding & Renovating Awards

Darren was once again invited to be on the judging panel of the prestigious Homebuilding & Renovating Awards, in partnership with The Times and The Sunday Times. The panel of eight expert judges had the enjoyable task of reviewing all the award entries, whittling them down to a shortlist of just 25 properties.

From this list they will now need to agree on the winners for each of the categories. You can also have your say, by voting for your favorite project for the Readers’ Choice Award – click here to vote.

 

Congratulations to all the shortlisted projects, the winners will be announced in the January edition of Homebuilding & Renovating magazine, on sale on 4th December.

Cedarwood published in Self Builder Magazine

Our Cedarwood project has been featured in the August edition of Self Builder Magazine. 

The article investigates how the property, a timber-framed 1950s bungalow, has been transformed and upgraded, to create a low energy home. The owners, Lettie and Tom had fallen in love with the property and bought it at auction, but didn’t realise just how much work would be involved in bringing it up to modern standards.

To read the full article, click here. 

Planning Secured for Housing Development

We are absolutely delighted to have secured full planning permission for our Coxford Road housing development, which was approved unanimously at planning committee.

The scheme will transform the existing brownfield site, to deliver much needed city centre housing for the Maybush district of Southampton. The development will deliver 15 high-quality apartments (comprising of two bedroom and one-bedroom units) arranged around a south facing communal courtyard, designed to foster a sense of community and maximise natural light.

 

Read more about the project here.

Groundbreaking on Courtyard House

This month we are celebrating the groundbreaking at the Courtyard House; a new build contemporary home located in Burley, at the heart of the New Forest National Park.

The design of the replacement dwelling offers a greatly improved spatial plan for the tight, elongated site. The scheme enhances the site constraints, by organising the internal spaces around two cut-outs made in the form of courtyards, breaking up the linear nature of the single storey home.

Due to issues around retrofitting the previous property, as it was so poorly constructed and not at all energy efficient, it was decided that it was better way forward to replace the building rather than renovating.

More project details can be found here.

Architectural Practice of the Year

We are absolutely thrilled to have won Architectural Practice of the Year at The Business Magazine South Coast Property Awards. It was such an honour to be recognised in this way, especially considering the very tough competition in the category, without the incredible passion and commitment of our truly talented team, this would just not possible.

In the words of the judges, we were chosen “for (our) excellence in community engagement, regional contribution, and environmental integration. The ‘listen first’ approach, adaptive designs, and commitment to reusing existing structures set a benchmark for sustainable, community-focused architecture rooted in local identity and long-term impact”.

This is such an achievement as we are still a small practice, just at the start of our journey after six amazing years in business. A huge thank you, goes out to our amazing clients, consultants, contractors and collaborators, that trust us to deliver projects.