The Apple House

The values of the project have been instilled into the architecture through the imaginative use of natural materials and a radical approach to material sustainability. Throughout the project, natural finishes simultaneously act as visible structural components. An innovative spruce glulam structure, designed with engineers Structure Workshop, creates a large open volume with generous openings connecting interior spaces to the natural landscape on all sides. Cast hempcrete acts as a carbon store and creates structural stability to the structural frame as well as providing insulation. Handcrafted floors of local unfired clay, lime plastered walls along with cleft oak cladding, create a warm and calming atmosphere.

Large openings connect multifunctional spaces to the surrounding landscape on multiple axes, framing a woodland to the south, a vegetable garden to the east and extensive plant library to the west. A year-round community programme provides professional and public participation in horticulture and environmental stewardship, including to local schools, youth groups, mental health charities, residents and designers.

The Apple House provides infrastructure to support an ongoing public programme within an environment that is welcoming and inclusive to the diverse needs of the public, while prioritising people with the least opportunity to access the natural world. Accessibility features include ramped access, accessible WC and washroom, and well-proportioned, adaptable spaces.

The project is part of an on going collaboration with The Serge Hill Project and Tom Stuart-Smith’s landscape studio and was granted planning permission on an undeveloped site in the Green Belt under ‘Very Special Circumstances’. For more information about the project:

https://www.sergehillproject.co.uk/about

Photography by Nick Dearden