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Bluebell House Finchampstead, Royal Berkshire




Bluebell House is a Paragraph 84 aligned rural home designed by Kirkland Fraser Moor, demonstrating the exceptional architectural quality required for building in sensitive countryside settings. Set within a secluded woodland glade in Finchampstead, the house is shaped by its natural surroundings, featuring a sweeping veranda, extensive glazing, and handcrafted brick and lime-mortar walls that echo the character and tones of the forest floor. Its low-impact form, passive-solar orientation, and seamless integration with bluebells, wildflowers, and long grasses embody KFM’s approach to environmentally responsive design. Bluebell House reflects the studio’s expertise in meeting the stringent expectations of Paragraph 84 by creating context-led, sustainable rural architecture that enhances rather than interrupts its landscape.

In a mature woodland this house aims to establish a well-considered relationship between the landscape setting for the house and the wider rural context. Currently the proposed site consists of a small glade meadow. Within the site boundary there are numerous landscape features that exist albeit in an un-managed state. Our intention is to provide a design where building form and landscape are one harmonious entity the division of which is unclear.

The facade is mainly glazed under the deep overhanging roof. The small sections of wall punctuating the windows are constructed from handmade brick with lime mortar providing a soft honey appearance similar to the surrounding soil. Window openings are generally not treated as ‘punched holes’ but breaks in the wall structure. The curved veranda around the house is a soft radiused form carefully cast in concrete and polished to give the house a very deliberate connection with the ground, a soft curved framing margin that mediated between the house and the long grasses, bluebells and wildflowers.

 In order to provide good solar orientation for passive heating / daylighting strategies a high proportion of glazing has been provided on southern facades and a lower proportion to the northern aspect. It is recognised that large expanses of glazing are not evident within traditional vernacular architecture but are essential to achieving low carbon efficiencies. 

The local character is a relatively diverse one with many examples of every period of vernacular architecture from Saxo-Norman churches, early cruck construction dwellings, formal Georgian and some less successful housing from the 1970s and ‘80s. Perhaps a representation can be gained by considering the nearest local villages where the building materials used are as diverse as the architectural styles. This reflects the availability of different materials at different periods.






Project Name: Bluebell House (Para 79 House)
Location: Finchampstead, Royal Berkshire

Project Credits 

Architect: Kirkland Fraser Moor Architects 
Client: Private
Structural Engineer: Expedition Engineering
Services Engineer: Atelier 10
Planning Consultant: Rural Solutions
Kirkland Fraser Moor ArchitectsTel: 01442 864 673 Email: mail@k-f-m.com 8-12 Clarence Rd Depot,
Clarence Rd. HP4 3AS GDPR &
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