North Sea East Wood

The extension to the house is finished in local flint and re-uses the clay roof tiles from the demolished garage.

The flint is used simply as a single monolithic material to dress the walls that face the North Sea and East Wood. The picture windows puncture the flint without edge detailing or expression and returns to the side elevation before turning to hung tiles. A variation to its common detailing where flint is used as decorative infil between brickwork.

The result is a cleaner, less fussy and more celebratory.: a contemporary expression of a vernacular material.

#northseaeastwood #northsea #eastwood #cromer #northnorfolk #cromerarchitecture #norfolkarchitecture #flint #flinthouse @hayhurstandco #newhome

Photo Credit: @kilianosullivan (finished photographs)
Photo Credit: Hayhurst & Co (site photographs)

North Sea East Wood

The design of the original 1980s bungalow’s design didn’t acknowledge its site: the living spaces were located on the southern wing of the plan that looked into the rising ground, and its northern wall – with the promise of a view to the North Sea – was solid, broken only by two small windows.

The design relocates the living spaces to the north of the plan in order to capture views with the extension angled to maximise the aspect towards the town’s church and the North Sea. The dining space located to benefit from the southerly aspect with ribbon glazing carving a panoramic view of the foot of East Wood.

The high-level window in the kitchen and skylight over the living area helps get light deeper into the plan whilst providing structured views where the rigidity of the original bungalow meets the spatial ambiguity of its extension.

#northseaeastwood #northsea #eastwood #cromer #northnorfolk #cromerarchitecture #norfolkarchitecture #flint #flinthouse @hayhurstandco #newhome

Photo Credit: @kilianosullivan

A new home – ‘North Sea East Wood’ – is published on our website today.

Located at one of the highest points in the north Norfolk town of Cromer, ‘North Sea East Wood’ sits in a unique location between views of the North Sea to the north and East Wood to the south. A remodelled home that sits between the openness of the sea and the density of the woods: between the expansive and the intimate.

The design re-structures the house. It breaks the room-based, orthogonal order of the original 1980s bungalow and enmeshes within and around it a new, spatially-fluid and contextual order structured around views out, bringing light in and the routines of the clients – a retired couple.

The extension is finished in local flint to form a hobbit-like elevation with stepped picture windows on inward-facing planes around a central chimney: an internal language to an external space and a counterpoint to the archetypal coastal typology of wrap-around verandas and covered decks.

#northseaeastwood #northsea #eastwood #cromer #northnorfolk #cromerarchitecture #norfolkarchitecture #flint #flinthouse @hayhurstandco #newhome

Photo Credit: @kilianosullivan

Nick will be opening the Edinburgh Architectural Society Semester two lecture series this Friday 17th January.

5pm in the Adam House Lecture Theatre on Chambers Street, Edinburgh University. Come along if you’re in town…!

Nick will be talking about approaches to sustainability, context and innovation and how these are explored and synthesised in a number of recent projects including Garden House and Green House, winner of RIBA House of the Year 2023.

@edinarsoc #architecturelevture @hayhurstandco