Heritage Meets Modern Living at Allum Lane
In leafy Elstree, Hertfordshire, Square Feet Architects have created a new home for a family of four generations.
Reflecting the family’s strong bonds, the client John Budhia and his wife asked Square Feet to create a beautiful and functional home for them, their children and grandchildren and John’s 93 year old mother. The result is a distinctive and adaptable three storey home, appropriate to context, with Danish Peterson red bricks arranged vertically and horizontally to create modern ornamentation and a warm and subtle change in texture.
The attention to detail in design and construction is typified by the slim coal-fired clay bricks, their non-uniform shape creating a play in light and dark shades. Aluminium powder-coated drainpipes are set into the brickwork to create crisp lines, with expansive glazing at the rear providing sweeping views over the south facing garden and mature trees including willow and beech.
The new house has extensive living, kitchen and dining space, and a wheelchair accessible bedroom and en-suite bathroom on the ground floor. Generous proportions ease circulation. Three family bedrooms, two bathrooms and a study are situated on the upper floor, with a playroom on the lower level including a cinema, snooker table, hot tub and steam room. The basement gains daylight from a lightwell at the rear, with the front driveway providing wheelchair access, and a garage.
Having worked successfully together on previous projects, Square Feet’s understanding of the brief and close collaboration with the client resulted in a robust design that could easily be constructed using the expertise of builders from John Budhia’s own construction company.
Daniel Leon, director of Square Feet architects, said: “At the outset John gave us a precedent image of the brickwork from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House. Given his admiration for high quality contemporary architecture and the family’s Indian roots, we played with the idea of how Frank Lloyd Wright might have built a home like this in India, referencing the modernist approach of Louis Kahn and Le Corbusier. The sculptural form, in harmony with its environment, was robust enough to manage evolutions in the brief as family needs changed. It is a home with strong expression of materiality that will continue to adapt over time in the natural way of life, with spaces for fun as well as quiet reflection.”
Home-owner John Budhia comments: “Family is very important to us and we love having our grandchildren to stay. We are very happy with the way the house has something to offer everyone and has been shaped to suit our way of life.”
Square Feet were able to gain planning permission for demolition of the existing neglected 1950s house and construction of a new home through sensitivity to context and careful consideration of neighbours’ privacy, daylight and views. The house is scaled appropriately for the street, nestled discreetly among mature trees. The building is designed to meet Lifetime Homes accessibility standards and Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4. The low energy approach includes fabric first design, highly insulated construction, re-use of rainwater and solar panels.
We are proud to feature and promote in our architecture magazine: ALLUM LANE GENERATIONAL LIVING by Square Feet
