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Hatchcopse, Haslemere, Surrey - 3500sqft new built modernist home in a traditional shell


Suraj Vithlani acted as project architect at Elspeth Beard Architects.

The project cost £300,000 and was on site for 10 months.

The steeply sloping site had a bunglow on it which was to be extended upwards and sideways. Planning parmission was achieved by Elspeth Beard. Suraj took over the project post-planning consent.

The house is half way down a sloping site with clay soil. The water runs down the hill and accumulates in front of the house, and then finds its way past the house into a stream further down the garden. This would have been ok to manage had we rebuilt the entire house and the substructure. However, to save costs, it was decided to build a new light weight timber frame house on existing foundations and ground slab. To achieve this we had to first of all justify the existing foundations and propose a three year programme to gradually remove three water intensive weeping willow trees nearby. We built a new retaining wall to front of the house with a perforated drain in front of it to take most of the run off coming down hill sideways away from the house. In addition, there is an underground perimeter void former to stop any residual ground water from coming in contact with the house sub-structure.

View from approach road.

The rear garden was extensively landscaped to enable gentle slopes rather than platforms and steps.

Landscaping works in progress.

The double height hallway with English Oak and travertine floor with under floor heating.

Construction in progress on a water logged site.

In-situ timber frame construction in progress on site.

Front garden and invisible retaining wall.

Landscaper in action.