Wrenn Beach House

Bembridge, Isle of Wight

Completion due 2005

A new-build year-round family house 100m from a beautiful beach,
replacing an unsatisfactorily arranged Victorian villa.

The house is envisaged as being a re-interpretation of vernacular
seaside houses and boathouses and uses traditional forms such as
simple, long, steeply pitched roofs and glazed gables, and traditional
materials such as exposed timber boarding and timber roof shingles.
The building is divided into two separate blocks in order to reduce
its apparent overall bulk and to help organize the site; the first
block being single storey high and the second being two storeys
high.

The single storey block nearest to the entrance
gate on Beach Road sits at the lowest site level and is conceived
as being an open
barn-type structure at its western end which then becomes enclosed
into the house at its eastern end (with accommodation in the pitched
roof attic as well). The idea of the open barn is to provide simple
shelter for cars, boats, children’s playtime, etc. as well
as for the steps up to the front door.

The two blocks of the house are joined by a glazed
link that forms the Entrance Hall from which one can enter the
house proper or
walk straight on through & out into the garden. The main block
of the house consists of 2 storeys plus an inhabited attic within
the pitched roof. It is set on the higher part of the garden created
by the retaining wall.

The architectural vocabulary for this block is a ‘filled
in’ version of the barn, but its glazed end gables also relate
to 19th century houses by architects Edwin Lutyens & Norman
Shaw and late Victorian seaside architecture in general. The solid
sides and glazed ends also help to reinforce the idea of the building
as a being like a large boathouse. Further reference points for
our design have been traditional boathouses and fishermen’s
sheds and modern examples of the use of traditional forms & materials
in interesting & inventive ways