Joppa Terrace

Rory and Jana repurposed the DVLA centre as their studio before moving in, inadvertently lending the building the title of a 'house' after a period of time. This opened up the route to create a new house on the site given the original building was low grade and well beyond its lifespan.

The site is tight, so the house follows a natural north-south orientation. Large openings to the south capture the sunlight that is crucial to Passivhaus design principles, and give the client the direct access to outdoor space they wanted, while the north side looks out across open sea views, which was equally important for them.

An ambitious cantilever is at the heart of this design.

Working closely with the clients, we arrived at a simple concept: a solid masonry ground floor housing the sleeping accommodation, topped by a lighter timber box containing a large open-plan living space, with sea views to the north. The timber box slides off the masonry below, creating the cantilever over the entrance and freeing up room for a south-facing courtyard at the rear.

The house is airtight, over-insulated and utilises an MVHR system and has been designed to work with a PHPP calculation which brings it into line with Passivhaus certification which was always a key requirement in the brief and in line with what we wanted to deliver.