MortonScarr Architects - Powers House

MortonScarr Architects

• 2016
• 350m²

A new build home set in a rural valley in South Devon, this five-bedroom house has been designed as a contemporary take on the vernacular style of rural buildings, featuring zinc clad pitched roofs and vertical western red cedar cladding, alongside the use of stone cladding to accent a projecting entrance porch to the front of the property.

Powers House is a new build timber framed contemporary house located in an area of outstanding natural beauty in East Devon. The new house replaced an old two storey workers cottage on the site which was of an unremarkable design.

The new house is designed as a contemporary take on the vernacular style of rural buildings, featuring zinc clad pitched roofs and vertical western red cedar cladding to the majority of the house, alongside the use of stone cladding to accent the projecting entrance porch to the front of the property.

Internally, the house features 5 bedrooms, and open plan kitchen and separate office, alongside a triple height living space with mezzanine library accessed via a ladder. This in turn leads onto a Master bedroom with views over the surrounding fields, with an ensuite that features a double height walk in shower.

A key feature of the house is its plywood staircase, constructed of laminated sheets of birch faced ply which enable the stair to be constructed off site and assembled on site with minimal mechanical fixings.

The house is constructed using a prefabricated timber frame, and also features triple glazed windows, solar thermal panels and an air source heat pump which provides heat to the underfloor heating contained within a polished concrete floor.