A Self Build on the Coast

Thanks to its four enormous cotton ‘sails’, architect Kevin Flowers’ new beachside house is visible from quite a distance. The four bedroom, two storey ‘Beach Hut,’ which now encompasses some 300m² of contemporary accommodation, stands on a coastal plot at Budleigh Salterton, once occupied by a dated 1970s house.

Back in 2001, Kevin and his wife, Sarah, had set themselves the goal of finding the perfect house by the sea. “Both Sarah and I love the sea and we were determined to move to the coast — and I mean right on the edge of it,” says Kevin, who can now step out of his new home and onto the sandy beach just 50 yards away. “However, although we wanted a property with fantastic coastal views, we wanted one that still maintained a sense of privacy.”

As a building plot right on the water’s edge is not something you come across every day, Kevin knew that the best way to achieve their dream was to buy an existing property that would need a lot of work. That way they could transform it into something that suited them — a home which they intended to be as contemporary as possible.

It took them three years to find something suitable and the house they found was so unattractive that Sarah hated it on sight and felt it was pointless even going inside. “It was a 1970s eyesore and looked just like a public toilet block,” says Kevin. “But I could see the site had potential, so I asked Sarah to concentrate on the view and ignore the house itself. Having developed an initial house design, I made a cardboard model of the proposed house so she could better visualise it. And, finally having alleviated her initial concerns, we went ahead and bought it.”

He has in fact managed to find the perfect site, as the main plot is elevated with the garden dropping down to the coastal road and the pebbly beach beyond.

Although the couple’s original plan involved retaining some of the original building, after living there for a while they realised that there was nothing about the house actually worth keeping. “It was much easier to knock it down and start again,” says Kevin. “We wanted open plan living and the original house had several little rooms on the ground floor which made it feel poky and claustrophobic. What we envisaged was completely different — we wanted stunning views of the sea, cliffs and the town whichever way we looked.”

Built in a mixture of masonry construction and steel frame, with reinforced concrete upper floor terraces, the external walls are either cedar clad or rendered to complement the ultra-modern interior. Due to the sloping nature of the site, the main entrance leads straight onto the upper floor of the building, where there is an enormous living/dining room and a sleek Alno kitchen. Downstairs there is a master bedroom suite and three guest rooms.

Whilst restricted by various covenants – one of which prevented raising the roof or widening the ground floor structure – it has been possible to extend the living room outwards and create large terraces over the enlarged lower floor bedrooms. Now they have a wonderfully spacious ground floor containing their living and dining areas. These lead onto the terraces which have been finished with a mixture of timber decking, large basaltine flagstones and polished basaltine wall cladding by Devon Stone. They are surrounded with glass balustrading and stainless steel handrails.

Downstairs, on the lower ground floor, is the master bedroom and three guest suites. “I hate an en suite bathroom being just a box in the corner, so each bathroom was designed to be integral with the bedrooms, or even partially open plan, as with the master bedroom,” says Kevin. The bathrooms are all designed as wetrooms and finished in different styles with large feature tiling and contemporary sanitaryware from Ripples, including a free-standing reconstituted marble bath for the main en suite.

Designing the house has been very much a joint effort. “As an architect, I’ve focused on designing the spaces and building structure, whilst Sarah gave valuable design input on the interior fittings and finishes, including suggesting the cerise pink and black glass Alno kitchen, with the black concrete worktops. She also suggested having room dividers, rather than walls between the principle reception areas, which maintains the feel of open plan living but with some subdivision,” explains Kevin.

One of the most striking features of the house is the stunning tensile structures, comprised of green oak masts with stainless steel rigging and natural cotton sails that Kevin and Timber Intent designed for the terraces. “The sails aren’t just designed to be visually pleasing — they offer important solar protection and create covered external spaces; however, they were one of the most complicated elements of the building to design,” Kevin says. “Timber Intent found them quite a challenge to construct. This was their first time integrating the sails with a permanent structure, and the exposed location of the site didn’t help. The steel supports have been designed to withstand wind-loading equivalent of 14 tons and are fixed down to the foundations; this should be enough to withstand even the very worst storms.”

Bringing such an ambitious project to fruition has not been without its headaches. To maintain their high expectations on quality and remain within budget, Kevin took over the project management once the shell was finished. “I then organised the subcontractors myself for several months, whilst still working as a director of TFQ Architects and doing the decorating in the evenings,” says Kevin. “Looking back, it was a pretty exhausting time.”

In particular, the kitchen was a very complex and time-consuming process. Once the units had been installed, it took several months for the black concrete worktops to be manufactured. The central island worktop, which measures over 3m x 1.5m, was the largest single concrete worktop manufactured by Mass, and needed six people to carry it into position.

But both Kevin and Sarah agree that it was well worth the wait. “We’re especially pleased with the house and also that the property seems popular with the locals,” says Kevin. “We might move one day but for now, we’re content to enjoy the view…”

Creating Partial Room Dividers

Completely open plan layouts are not always practical — sometimes a degree of privacy is required or some form of division is necessary to increase storage. Creating partial room dividers, as Kevin and Sarah have done, is the ideal way to create distinct ‘zones’ within an open plan space without shutting off flow between areas. Partial room dividers are most commonly designed to finish before ceiling height or to span just part of the room’s width. The easiest way to create them is through constructing a stud partition. This is done by securing timber ‘studs’ to a base plate and head plate before strengthening with horizontal noggings (SEE BELOW). This structure can then be covered with plasterboard before being skimmed and painted.

Further reading:

• An Eco-friendly Self-build with Sails
• An Award-winning Self-build on the Coast
• A Low-impact Self-build on the Thames