In London a house is mostly a negotiation with its neighbours. In open country it is a conversation with the ground. There is no terrace to line up with, no party wall to respect, just a piece of land that has its own light, its own weather and its own ideas about where a building should sit. The work we love most is listening to that carefully enough to get it right.

Stand on it before you draw it

We spend a lot of time on a rural site before a single line is drawn. Where does the sun rise and set across the year. Which direction does the weather come from. Where is the view you want to keep, and where is the one you would rather screen. Where is the ground solid, where does the water sit. A house that ignores these things has to fight them forever. A house that answers them feels settled from the first day.

Aerial view of a low house sitting in the landscape toward the coast, Modern Barn, Dorset
Modern Barn, Dorset. A long, low form laid along the contour, so the house belongs to the slope rather than perching on it.

Let the section follow the ground

Flat sites are rare and rarely the best. A slope is an opportunity: you can step the house with the land, bring light in from two levels, put the rooms that want quiet below and the rooms that want the view above. The cross-section of a country house, the way it moves up and down through the ground, is often where its character lives. We draw the section as carefully as the plan, because on a real site the two are the same decision.

Hold one view, not all of them

A common mistake is to glaze everything in the hope of catching every aspect. The result is a house with no shelter and nowhere to feel held. A good country house is usually generous in one or two directions and quite closed in the others. One big, considered opening onto the best view is worth more than glass on all four sides, and it leaves you somewhere to put your back.

A living space opening to the landscape with a low, framed view, Cove Ridge, Devon
Cove Ridge. The view is rationed, framed and held, so it stays remarkable rather than becoming wallpaper.

“In the country the architect’s job is mostly restraint. The land is already beautiful. You are trying not to spoil it, and to make one good place to stand and look at it.”

Build from the place

The last move is material. A house in open country wants to be built from things that belong to it, or at least do not argue with it: stone, timber, render in the colours of the ground, metal that weathers down rather than staying bright. Done well, a new house can look as though it has always been part of the landscape, which on a beautiful site is the highest compliment the building can pay.

If you have a site in the country and want a house that grows out of it, we would love to see it. There are more houses here, and you can get in touch any time.