Spring/Summer 2004
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Studio House. Toft. View from North
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CAMBRIDGE ARCHITECTS' HOUSES
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architecture urbanism environmental issues • in the Carn bridge city region
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In celebration of this fiftieth issue of the Gazette we are devoting most of the space to recent new houses and conversions designed by architects for themselves, for their own use . . The projects included are all by local practitioners and contributors to the Gazette but are not necessarily in the Cambridge area, a slight departure from our normal criteria for this special issue. House design may be one of the most exacting tasks an architect has to undertake. It may often be less complex and sophisticated than other building types but it is inevitably more of a personal challenge and more difficu lt to do well. In designing for others we can, and perhaps should, always subsume our own wishes to a degree but all designers have their own evolving agenda. This may only be fully revealed in what one does for oneself. There is also the most difficult challenge of working with your partner , husband or wife and the challenge of exactly what to do, what to build. So much is now published daily on all aspects of house design and on materials and fittings. Choice in all matters is vast and bewildering, even for architects. So designers look for reasons for doing things in a certain way drawing on
a whole variety of influences. They build up a case based on a range of criteria and we probably have to understand what these are to fully understand and appreciate what has been built. The projects included here are quite varied in approach , partly through varied locations and inevitable differences in style between seven architects. The Toft house is a skilful response to a rural setting. The three frontages of the house differ in character and scale achieving both privacy and enclosure and open views avoiding the suburban character of earlier neighbours. A studio at the bottom of an Ely garden uses salvaged natural materials in an unorthodox way creating essentially a sophisticated garden shed. A home in Argyll has a site almost too good to build on; a formidable challenge for any architect. Both barn conversions at Kirtling and Grantchester appropriately restrained from the outside exploit the spatial qualities of the buildings internally. Much of an architect's skill in domestic work can be in transforming something totally ordinary into something more interesting, or in modernising and converting buildings in a way which reinforces their established character. David Raven