The Oak house is a bespoke five bedroom, luxury eco-home, for a musical family living in the village of Seer Green, on the southern boundary of the Chilterns. The landscape setting is of remnant woodland on rising land and overlooks an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The client’s brief was to design a large family home that they could live, work and entertain their extended family in. The most important feature of the house was to be the music room where the owner wanted to be able to acoustically shut the room off from the rest of the house when composing but then open it when playing together. The accommodation is inverted, with the living spaces occupying the barrel-vaulted upper floor. The music room sits at the heart of the building and can be shut off with acoustic sliding folding glass doors. A wood burning stove/boiler and solar thermal and electrical panels provide 20% renewable energy. Natural Daylight and Passive Ventilation reduce the need for artificial control and contribute to a comfortable and uplifting environment. The curved plan and section allowed a generous family home to be designed within a discreet building envelope. Window bays created by facets in the plan provide views towards the distant hills. The green roof is clad with an extensive sedum blanket. The green roof and the green oak cladding tie the building into the surroundings. The building is predominantly timber frame construction, formed from FSC Glulam beams and JJI composite joists. The materials were selected to complement the picturesque setting and to partially disguise the building. Green oak draws upon materials of traditional country barns, left to weather and silver naturally over time. FSC timber is used throughout the house in bespoke joinery, dark on the upper floor and light on the lower. The integrated design approach for the Oak House shows that you can design a beautiful and environmentally responsible dwelling fit to meet the challenges of the 21st Century.