Client: Anglo China Merchants

Location: Clandown, Somerset + other locations

Status: Complete

Brief

The exploitation of green-field mass housing has not been the UK’s finest architectural hour; in concept, in execution and in sustainability. Working with a Chinese fabricator, a design pattern book of pre-fabricated units has been developed, along with an approach to site development to satisfy most rural settings including local vernaculars and materials employed within the applied design. The buildings should be arranged in clusters to recall historic development patterns of villages with shared open amenity space as the ‘common’ ground.

There is an inevitable contrast between the rural setting and the building techniques employed. This is reinforced by the polarity between the intermodal container (servant) element and the more conventional structure to the rest of the house (served) element.