Before the intervention, the site was heavily influenced by human activity in transforming the landscape – it served as a vast golf field on the outskirts of London. BUDCUD decided to reverse the strategy and set the environment ‘free’.

We re-opened and renewed the connection between nature and anthropocene, building the house around different spatial relations to nature, defining the internal lexicon of those bonds. Experiences and impressions (the bonds) defined an urban masterplan in a micro-scale. They built an open frame, which permitted and encouraged various situations and events to happen.

The narrative was variable. The beautiful house was a contemporary and rather abstract reinterpretation of classic typology ‘entre cour et jardin’ (‘between the court and the garden’) with bricolage of elements and spaces constituting the living space in the middle. In the living room all the family members democratically shared the picturesque view of the site. The house, as a narrative of spaces, impressions and experiences, was enclosed with a large window. Its silhouette was a ghost of the old gabled-roofed house volume.

The beautiful house was a functional sequence of spaces, that merge with surrounding nature with experiences and visual impressions. It is not a building, it is a complex environment.