Hearth House

Hearth House is the retrofit of a 1950s country house in the Surrey Hills. Over the years the original two-storey house had gathered a series of sporadic, disjointed extensions. Rather than clearing them away, the project upgrades them and stitches them back into the original building. A new timber-framed dining hall does this work. It joins the existing house around a central hearth, which has been reinstated but mirrored so that it now faces the new room, and the hearth becomes the centre of the family home.

The hall is built in Welsh-grown Douglas fir, as two structural grids that pinwheel around a single turned circular column. The frame also sets the views out, towards the surrounding gardens and the pastoral farmland beyond. Offcuts from the structure are reused in bespoke joinery throughout the house, in benches, wardrobes and shelving that animate the rooms.

The plan is organised as a set of offset rooms around the hearth. The new hall opens up the knuckle between the original two-storey house and the single-storey extension to the north. Private spaces are pushed to the edges of the plan, so the central kitchen and dining room become the stage for daily family life.

The house steps down to meet the garden at several levels, which gives each room its own close connection to the landscape around it.

The whole building is highly insulated, which drastically reduces its heating demand. Outside it is rendered in a combination of smooth and roughcast finishes. The render brings new and old together into one composition that is consistent but layered. The project won the Architects’ Journal Retrofit and Reuse Award 2025 in the individual renovation category.