A dark and ‘stealthy’ Welsh cottage reimagines life and architecture by the Irish Sea
White Breakers is a Pembrokeshire Coast National Park holiday home, refitted by Unknown Works to improve flow, looks and sustainability
A Welsh cottage, White Breakers, has been reimagined for the 21st century, courtesy of London-based architecture studio Unknown Works. The aim was to redesign an existing single-storey house on the edge of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park to improve both functionality and sustainable architecture – and to do so in the 'stealthiest' way possible.
Explore this reimagined Welsh cottage
The house offers long views of the Irish Sea and features large windows that bring in the natural vistas in all the main spaces. The architects sought to enhance this, implementing a muted colour palette inside and out, with dark colours outside and bright whites and timber accents inside. The slick look achieved makes the house discreet as well as warm and sophisticated.
Energy efficiency was a huge priority for the team and its client. Ensuring a low carbon footprint, both in terms of construction and the home's eventual habitation and operation, informed many of the design decisions. Keeping things nature-friendly was also crucial. A bat box was installed on the building's exterior, for example.
The clients, a pair of creatives with a main base in London’s Notting Hill, are a long-term Unknown Works collaborator – their London home was the practice’s first completed project, in 2016. This allowed the team to have flowing, in-depth discussions, working through the elements of the structure that needed updating and the best ways forward in each case.
It was ‘a bit of a Frankenstein building’, says Unknown Works director Kaowen Ho. ‘It was typically energy inefficient, like so many properties of its era, built with ad hoc extensions and very little thought given to the lifecycle of the building or how it might be used in the future, let alone sustainability or biodiversity. The house also showed signs of water ingress, thermal bridging and damp, amongst other critical construction flaws, whilst the interior was a warren of small spaces with no sensible layout or flow.
‘Overall, this is a stealthy, subtle and restrained design,’ he adds, ‘with the low-slung black, even brutal, exterior giving way to a very soft and bright interior, offering the warmth and welcome of a proper family home.’
