Foxglove House Wiggington, Hertfordshire




The new dwelling replaces a small existing stable block with a low visual impact low carbon 4-bedroom family home. Innovative massing and orientation solutions are provided to ensure that the four-fold increased floor area for the new house would not have any additional negative impact upon the critical long views over open sensitive Greenbelt and AONB countryside location. 

The design concept revolves around the development of a single storey courtyard plan form, a typology that has been used very successfully in almost all vernacular examples around the world but not so much in the UK. The plan is comprised of an open square ‘doughnut’ single courtyard form.  The site orientation is such that the best views are towards the north facing down the valley towards Ashridge Estate. The courtyard allows for a southern solar aspect for north facing rooms.

KFM developed a design approach that has been led by a desire to mitigate visual impact from the long views from across the valley and from the Ridgeway trail routes to the north. The single storey building form of the same silhouette as the previously existing stable block features overhanging eaves that project forward from the envelop line. The resulting play of light creates deep shadow underneath the roof and assists with overheating mitigation and breaking up the façade when viewed from the critical vantage points. The external walls have also been designed in a ‘zig-zag’ arrangement that creates a further set of shadows in the vertical plane of the façade. The facades are therefore broken down into areas of strong shadow contrast which helps blend the building volume into the background of tall foliage.

The roof and main external envelop are oriented to be set out along the same geometry as the original stable block. This however was not the best orientation for maximising daylighting, passive solar gain and views from the inside. By rotating the internal geometry by 45 degrees to that of the roof we have then been able to maximise this potential such that rooms orient out at 45 and 135 degrees to the main building orientation.

The courtyard space in the centre of the plan provides a safe, discrete and secure entrance route to the house. The glazing to the courtyard then permits the building to maximise the southern orientation for daylighting and passive solar gain strategies whilst also ensuring that light pollution to the neighbouring properties is eliminated. The courtyard also enables a discrete and private space within which the visual intrusion of domestic paraphernalia for outdoor living can be contained.
The external cladding is constructed from natural low embodied energy materials that last and weather well. The main materials on all the facades are brick and lime mortar and pre-patinated copper. The brick is local waste brick sourced from facilities at J.M. Matthews less than two miles away.  Waste brick will generally be downcycled to crushed aggregates for roads.  The principle of waste reuse we have developed has now been adopted by the brickworks as a ‘variety mix’ product line available for purchase.

The construction system uses a Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) off site manufactured system. By building most of the house off-site we were then able to help reduce disruption to the local community and road network as well as substantially reducing on site construction time and material wastage.

A ground + garage roof mounted solar array provides approx. 85-100% of all energy needs, this includes 2 EV vehicles. Natural clay plasters are used throughout the internal spaces and provide a beautiful healthy breathable surface.

Natural England through numerous studies has shown that due to human development within the UK many species of birds, bats and bees are in steady decline. The project demonstrates how contemporary architecture and landscape design can reverse this trend in a manner that is not prescriptive or compromising on design quality. The random waste brick wall configuration was highly controlled by working closely with local crafts people to create a unique piece of biophilic architecture that simultaneously provides abundant habitable spaces for bats, swifts/swallows and bees as well as local flora. 

A rewilding landscaping strategy has been embarked upon to turn the existing eastern and southern meadows into areas of increased biodiversity through strategic planting of native wildflowers and other flora. More than 97 per cent of meadows have been lost since the 1930s and the remaining fragments have poor legal protection. These areas will attract insects which, in turn, bring in more birds and small mammals allowing nature to thrive. Recent bioacoustics surveys have demonstrated a substantial uplift in bird numbers including 5 Red Listed species such as the Spotted Flycatcher, Linnet and Swift.







Project Name: Foxglove House
Location:  Wiggington, Hertfordshire 
Gross Floor Area (House): 285 m2 

Project Credits 

Architect: Kirkland Fraser Moor Architects 
Client: Private
Contractor: Atkins PM
Quantity Surveyors: PCP Surveyors
Structural Engineer: Studio Allen
Landscape Architect: Bowles & Wyre
Building Services & Passivhaus Consultant: Aura
Low-Carbon Energy Systems: Aura
Electrical Engineer: Aura
Building Inspectors: Stroma 
Ecology: MKA Ecology
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