Project: 142 South Street
Architects: Sandy Rendel Architects
Location: Lewes, UK
Area: 2,766 sq ft
Photographs by: Oliver Perrott
142 South Street by Sandy Rendel Architects
Located within the scenic South Downs National Park on the banks of the River Ouse in Lewes, East Sussex, Sandy Rendel Architects has completed the 142 South Street residence. It is a new house set to replace a derelict workshop on a brownfield site that historically functioned as a wharf for the old quarry and cement works behind.
142 South Street occupies a prominent position at the entrance to the town and is a result of the local planning authority’s aspiration to create a landmark building to mark the entrance to the town.
From the architects: “This four bedroom house sits on a prominent brownfield site in the South Downs National Park on the banks of the River Ouse. Built off the roughcast concrete river wall, it enjoys expansive views to the south and west over the river and its low-lying flood plain. Behind the chalk face of Cliffe Hill rises steeply to provide an imposing backdrop.
The distorted vernacular form orientates the interior towards the key views and provides sheltered external pockets around the building to buffer the sound of the adjacent road. Its scale is broken down by carving away the ridge and by adding two single story elements on the roadside. These frame a new entrance courtyard and reflect the grain of adjoining building fabric that abuts the pavement line.”
From the architects: “A simple palette of materials emphasises the building’s form and reflects the qualities of the site and its surrounds. An in-situ concrete frame at ground level is in-filled with glass and local ash-glazed brickwork. Above, walls and roof are clad in a continuous skin of Cor Ten steel, which will self-weather to a striking ochre color, echoing the local soft red clay brickwork and tiles and alluding to the past industrial heritage of the site.
The project was completed in the autumn of 2015 and featured on Series 16 of Channel 4’s Grand Designs.”
