Orchard House exemplifies one of the many perversities of the British planning system – the need to ‘prove’ exceptional design to receive permission to build in certain rural locations. The relevant legislation, Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework (previously Paragraph 79), has given rise to a small but significant subculture of so-called ‘Paragraph 84 houses’, with architects vying with one another to prove they have the design chops, local authority contacts and report-writing skills necessary to inveigle a modern house into these so-called ‘traditional settings’.
The house seen from the road
Explore the case of Orchard House
Studio Bark is perhaps a step ahead of the field, quite literally. As the practice is keen to note, it has secured planning permission for no fewer than 15 houses under this legislation and has become adept at ensuring the legislation isn’t just about grand modernist mansions, but also more affordable and modestly scaled houses that place energy efficiency at their core.
The garden façade of the Orchard House showing the centrally placed staircase
Orchard House in Cheshire, permission for which was secured under the rules at the turn of the decade, epitomises this approach. Studio Bark has commissioned a new set of images of the project, six years after completion, to see how its design has integrated into its surroundings, the materials have weathered, and the planting has matured.
The house sits in the midst of a restored orchard
The Orchard House has three bedrooms, arranged in an S-shaped plan across two levels, with living areas upstairs and bedrooms, storage, utility space and a garage on the ground floor. The outward expression of this plan is less straightforward, however, with the elevation broken up into two cubic volumes, joined by a slender stair core and flanked on one side by the single storey garage.
The staircase forms the core of the house, linking the two cubic elements
The brief was intensely personal; the site had a long history of family ownership, with memories of the working fruit orchard still very much alive in the client’s mind. As part of the ongoing management of the site, the orchard has been restored and part of the site given over to the new house, now perfectly ensconced in its surroundings thanks to the weathered silvery larch cladding.
The central stair element has a pitched roof
Another view of the bridge element at first floor level
Built with energy-efficiency in mind, the house is timber framed and is sited to make the most energy-efficient use of the plot based on sun paths, preserving existing biodiversity and the use of the Passivhaus Planning Package to keep energy costs down.
Integral timber shutters bring privacy as well as shade in the summer, while a hyperlocal materials strategy culminates in parquet flooring made from a dying ash tree removed from the site.
The living room is on the first floor
The kitchen and dining room. Ash parquet is used throughout
The replanted and restored orchard includes the revival of a rare variety of local Cheshire pear and the revitalisation of wildflower meadows and habitats. All this is visible from the first-floor living area, divided between a kitchen and dining room at one end of the plan and a sitting room at the other, linked by the staircase bridge.
The clients in the kitchen at the Orchard House
Design details at the Orchard House
Studio Bark’s previous projects include this overhauled Victorian Villa and a low-energy house in Suffolk (which was also a Paragraph 84 house). Its work highlights a holistic, rounded approach to architecture that embraces our ad-hoc relationship with materials, nature, energy and place, yet leaves nothing to chance.
The Orchard House, Studio Bark