Location: Whitstable, England.

Architect: Stiff + Trevillion.

This new construction house, which is located on the North Kent shoreline outside Whitstable, is inspired by old-fashioned fishing huts and boat sheds and incorporates local materials and textures to blend in. The upper level of the home is divided into two different, single-story, timber-clad forms that assist reduce the building’s mass to a residential scale and blending in well with its surroundings. The master bedroom and garage are located in the long “boat shed” component, while other bedrooms and a study are located in the shorter “fisherman’s hut” building. All of the guestrooms in the two timber buildings have been designed to have unobstructed views of the sea.

The dynamic and asymmetrical form of the roofscape sets up the modern interpretation of a traditional, regional architectural language while reflecting the background sea’s ever-changing surface. A Corten steel and glass link structure that houses the entrance hall and vertical circulation connects these two components. The house makes use of the site’s slope by having parts of the upper floor cantilever weightlessly outward towards the water, visually separating them from the lower floor and providing an overhang for shelter from the weather. The lower floor appears to be a board-formed, in-situ concrete platform with strong walls supporting the ground. The low-lying timber beach breakers that line the length of the beachfront in front mimic the raw materiality of this area.