On the location of a former brickworks in rural Wiltshire, London-based Tuckey Design Studio has accomplished a brand new nation home constructed from the bottom beneath it. The challenge, a rammed earth home, makes use of excavated clay and demolition combination from the prevailing web site to type its thick monolithic partitions—an historical building method reimagined right here with a degree of refinement that’s unmistakably Tuckey Design.
The home is located on a 63-acre property the place the homeowners sought to remodel “a scattering of unremarkable Victorian buildings and unwelcome Nineteen Nineties additions into an unconventional, daring, and contextually rooted nation homestead grounded in an environmental sensibility,” the studio writes.
As a former brickworks, the location already had a historical past of fabric extraction. Analysis into the encircling geology—together with William Smith’s 1815 geological map of England—revealed clay-rich soil beneath the property, prompting the architects to discover rammed earth not as novelty, however as structure. Current buildings had been demolished, their combination mixed with excavated clay from the location itself to create the uncooked materials for the brand new partitions. “We turned the location right into a quarry,” explains Jonathan Tuckey. “Digging, drying, and sifting the clay.”
The ensuing home is outlined by a collection of earthen volumes linked by lighter timber-and-glass buildings, with interiors formed by textural and materials simplicity. Working alongside Todhunter Earle Interiors and panorama designer Pip Morrison, the studio has created a low-impact home that feels beneficiant, tactile, and monumental—with a footprint to match. Right here’s a go searching.
Pictures by Jim Stephenson for Tuckey Design Studio.
As a result of rammed earth stays unusual at this scale within the UK, the primary six months had been spent testing materials blends and building strategies alongside Austrian rammed-earth specialist Martin Rauch of Lehm Ton Erde. The staff in the end prevented cement and lime stabilizers altogether, figuring out a 25/25/25/25 ratio of clay, demolition combination fashioned of crushed brick and concrete, regionally sourced limestone gravel, all blended with water. The fabric is historical—rammed earth has been used as a constructing method way back to the Neolithic period, however the utility is solely new.
