Tara de Linde is the director of Atelier de Linde Ltd. Here, the talented and highly experienced architect reflects on a recent project that set her and her team an unusual yet enjoyable challenge: to create a home hidden from view – but one that boasted the most fantastic vistas.
Written by Tara de Linde
On rare occasions in an architect’s career, one receives that most paradoxical of commissions: to design a building that cannot be seen. Whilst this may sound like a non-starter, in practice it presents a golden opportunity. The first such commission I undertook was just outside Bath. At the time, I was working as an architectural assistant fora small practice in Bristol and our clients, Prior Park College, were seeking an architect who could respond to a rather peculiar brief.
Prior Park is a magnificent, Grade I-listed Neo-Palladian villa perched on the crest of 28 acres of National Trust park land with magnificent views across the city of Bath below. The parkland, designed by the poet Alexander Pope, drops down steeply from the villa into a broad scoop of a valley and is peppered with ‘folly’ features such as the acclaimed Palladian Bridge, a Gothic temple and a grotto.
The villa – now a private college – was expanding and needed a new day house, but one that would not detract from the C18th stage set. The obvious solution therefore was to embed it into the steep hillside, out of sight. It sits there today, quietly and unassumingly, nestled among series of terraces.
Fast forward a couple of decades and flutter over to East Sussex, settling over an inconspicuous parcel of land just west of Wadhurst. An abandoned tennis court sits in the twilight zone between the last house along Mayfield Road and an ancient woodland. This time, the brief for a hidden gem was determined not so much by the client but rather by planning policy. Excitedly, I started scribbling ideas down on the back of an envelope to create Westerleigh, an expansive family home entirely hidden from view.
Emerging through a cluster of trees onto the new site, there is little to see. Visible in the distance, a low-lying bank of solar panels reflects the sky above and on either side of the clearing the ground imperceptibly folds away into the earth. A series of glass balustrades (Building Control compliance) though betrays a more sophisticated intervention. A bird’s eye view would give more away, revealing three long, rectangular lightwells which upon closer inspection are flanked by a series of internal openable glass screens.
And here begins the magic of unravelling the paradox. Though hidden underground, every room in the house opens to the outside, fresh air and light. Four bedrooms, each with an en-suite bathroom, give onto the private winter garden, whilst the triple-aspect kitchen/dining area is flanked by views out to the north/west and to the more social winter garden to the south. In summer, glass doors to the inner gardens can be opened dissolving the inside/outside thresholds.
From a sustainability perspective, the house works like a dream. Earth is a good insulator. The array of solar panels double up as a canopy preventing summer overheating and the winter gardens facilitate the flow of natural air through the building.
In our profession, much is made of loud, signature buildings that cry out for attention – but I would like to raise the flag for quietude. Architecture that does not clamour for kudos but rather sits quietly and anonymously in its setting, respecting nature and in harmony with the environment. Diana’s Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park epitomises such an ethos. One stumbles upon the feature as it glides playfully through the trees. People interact with it as naturally as one would with a stream. Topography, scale, materials and sound all converse as the water ebbs and flows across different textures.
It is fun, peaceful, beautiful. A still, small voice of calm.
Atelier de Linde Ltd, 78 St John’s Road,
Tunbridge Wells, TN4 9PH
