The project is a collaboration between Forgeworks Architects and the client, Celia McCarthy, creative director and founder of Bath-based interior design practice Richardson Studio. McCarthy’s colourful and textured interiors complement the carefully considered architecture, delivering a house which celebrates the principles of retrofit and reuse over demolish and new build.

This adventurous contemporary design has been achieved within a conservation area and in the context of a World Heritage Site. Perched on a private wooded hill side road in the outskirts of Bath with views directly over the city to Bristol, the Severn Estuary, and beyond to Monmouthshire, the house had not been renovated in decades and suffered from poor insulation and a palette of pastiche, low quality materials.

The decision to ‘cloak’ the building by placing high performance insulation and sustainable cedar cladding on the outside of the external walls and roof creates a visually unified and low energy home, with the retained building fabric repurposed as thermal mass.

A radically different house is delivered without significantly increasing its footprint. Much of the roof structure was retained, but sections of loft have been incorporated to add volume and drama in the internal layout, including a double height sky-lit hallway, mono-pitched kitchen-dining space and deep cut roof lights in the previously dark rear bedrooms. In the main living space, the original roof pitch has been inverted to create a defining front section, unexpected externally and generously spacious internally.

Relocating the main entrance from the centre to the far right of the building divides the house naturally between east and west. Facing west, the main living spaces benefit from afternoon and evening sunlight, with expansive views over the valley framed by large scale windows and sliding doors which open on to the terrace.