The Glass House

Client: Musker Developments

: FP Homes

The Glass House is a contemporary pavilion-like family home in South Liverpool. Set within the grounds of a Grade II Listed Georgian Mansion House, the two-storey house is submerged into the surrounding landscape reducing the visual impact on the listed building. The house is expressed as a light-weight single-storey pavilion with contoured modelling of the surrounding landscape creating sunken courtyard gardens. These slope gracefully from the main garden level to basement-level – ensuring outlook and light to the lower-level bedrooms whilst affording privacy to more intimate spaces.

The upper-ground level provides open-plan living accommodation within a glazed envelope. Large walls of uninterrupted glazing provide wrap-around views of extensive landscaped gardens while carefully located tree planting prevents impact on homeowner privacy from surrounding properties. Attention to detail accentuates the modernist aesthetic. Handmade bricks add texture and tactility in contrast to the seamless expanses of glass and aluminium fascias. Clerestory windows wrap around the main space ensuring the roof never touches the walls and iroko soffits to the floating roof add warmth and complement the woodland setting. Exposed brickwork is used internally and externally blurring the boundaries between inside and outside. Cross-ventilation ensures passive cooling and large overhanging soffits vary in size to suit orientation; protecting the upper floor from over-heating during summer and allow low filtered winter sun to maximise daylight, in combination with the surrounding deciduous tree cover. North-facing elevations are highly insulated and at lower ground level, earth sheltered walls maintain a stable temperature to the bedroom accommodation.