A Contemporary Dream Home in Manchester

"I only wanted to move from my existing house if it was to be to the highest quality contemporary home that I’d always dreamed of,” says Jennifer Norton. “I wasn’t interested in settling for second best.” Having spent three years searching for a suitable site — leafy, quiet, on the edge of countryside in south Manchester, Jennifer finally came across a large plot occupied, ironically enough, by an award-winning 1970s self-built bungalow. The resulting home that she has built – with a bit of help from a crack team of architects and project managers – is one of the most dazzling contemporary homes built in the UK in recent years.

"It had the stunning views I'd always dreamed of and was in the perfect location," explains Jennifer. The bad news was that the plot - now massively overgrown with untended landscaping dreams of yesteryear - came not only with a pretty troublesome slope - away from the road frontage - but also in a Conservation Area and, most troubling of all, with a covenant that any property on the site be single storey. Not exactly the stuff that dreams are made of - but company director Jennifer is made of sturdy stuff and had the wisdom to commission the Manchester-based practice Stephenson Bell, who she knew through contacts, to come up with a scheme.

"I wanted something calming, clutter-free and simple," explains Jennifer. "Something externally that would look refined and subtle, and internally that would be easy to live with - with all my stuff stored away out of sight - and simple in its detail and appearance." Project architect Andrew Edmunds takes up the story. "The plan and form of the new building we designed responds to both the orientation and the eight-metre fall from the site (front to rear). Jennifer wanted simplicity in the design but also a highly contemporary feel."

The building is formed effectively with two blocks - formed in blockwork, supplemented with steel to achieve the required spans and precast concrete planks. The second of the blocks, which incorporates the dramatic double-height living space, has been lowered into the gradient of the site - involving plenty of digging out - and solves the problem of the covenant by meeting the single-storey criteria while at the same time giving Jennifer the dramatic spaces so important to a house of this style.

This home is all about the use of the site and the blurred relationship between outside and in. With huge five-metre-high glazing ensuring every room enjoys maximum views out over the garden and open countryside to the rear, this home is full of nature and bags of light. The open plan layout has been expertly designed to separate out the main living spaces from the bedroom and bathroom portion of the house, all of which is served by a long corridor that leads to nowhere but, again, a large window.

Internally, the main stair descends into the wow-inducing double-height space - distinctly Californian in style - with a continuous floor covered in fumed oak. In this traditional process the wood is fumed with ammonia to darken and enrich its colour - legend has it that the process was created because people liked the way that oak beams in stables looked after being exposed to years of horse urine. The floor also leads into the corridor of the bedroom block - this is, to all intents, very much a single-storey design - with its suspended precast concrete louvres and a floor that continues out through frameless glass (the effect is that one feels as if they are walking into a mirror) into additional accommodation, used for livein household staff.

Jennifer has clearly spent a lot of time specifying the interior fittings, with a spectacular sunken bath, sleek units and kitchen storage from Poggenpohl, and a series of sliding doors that seem to integrate into the internal walls. Most impressive of all, however, is the effect of the perfectly executed lighting scheme that utilises a heady mix of downlighters, floor-mounted uplighters, spotlighting and commercial-style recessed lighting that somehow gives the visitor the sense of being in a fashion show.

The landscaping is quite stunningly detailed and, in parts, the house feels like a pretty good approximation of what it must be like to live at Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic design deep in the Pennsylvanian woods. Seen through a series of frameless glass openings, this really is a home that feels very much designed around its site rather than wedged in - like so many contemporary ‘statement' houses. The change in levels helps to create interesting patterns but the great success overall with the scheme is the fact that, from the street elevation, no one would suspect the contemporary masterpiece that lies behind.

Using a project manager - Altrincham firm Planetree Properties - to manage the site (Jennifer's work takes her away quite a bit and running the site herself would have been impossible) meant that the project itself ran smoothly, although inevitably with a project of this size (465m²) and complexity, the 15 months it took to completion is to be expected.

This contemporary home ticks all the boxes: white render; oversized windows; flat roof; neutral interiors mixed with rich, dark woods; open plan layout and so on - but its real success is that it somehow manages to be much more than the sum of its parts. That is in part down to the integration with the spectacular landscaping scheme, and in part due to the sheer drama of the design - but mainly thanks to the determination of one woman. 

Further reading:

• A Cutting Edge Family Home
• A Modern Home in the City
• A Guide to Contemporary House Design