For the majority functionality of a house means ample amounts of privacy but for some, the aesthetics overrule everything else. This detached house, designed by London-based architecture firm Surman Weston, is named Ditton Hill House with a quaint-looking structure, having influences of modern white villas built in the 1930s.
The 2-storey house located on a suburban street in Surbiton, Surrey, has mostly a simple design with a white building and a porous frontside. It has a contemporary minimalist style with an industrial feel. The design of the main feature of the house, the brick wall, resembles lacework and just mildly blurs the distinction between the interior and exterior. This attribute provides the house with a good amount of light and ventilation as well.
The architects took reference from the local forms and came up with the traditional A-frame elevation, but finished the structure in a steel frame, pitched roof, and white walls, adding the element of modernity.
“The inherent strength of the steel exoskeleton permitted a thinning of the structural steel, which helps to express the pitched form diagrammatically as if it were drawn by a child, however, its form and materialization are strongly informed by the local vernacular, and its design has emerged from the careful orchestration of subtle references to it.” the architects said.
The ground floor has an entrance courtyard, utility, kitchen, living, dining, study divided by diagonal walls. The reception and the first floor include an internal courtyard, bedroom, bathroom within the loft space, dressing room, and balcony. The master bedroom of the first floor opens to an enclosed balcony, which provides a pleasant view of the outdoors. The spacious hall, which also functions as the internal courtyard, has exposed blockwork walls and roughly-screeded concrete floors. Another feature that brings all the elements together is the garden, which maintains the rugged but modern look of the house.
