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Godwit House

Northumberland

Project Details

£0.5m to £0.99M

New Build, Sited in AONB, Sited in Greenbelt land, Within a Conservation Area

Practice

Mawson Kerr Architects

1 Charlotte Square , Newcastle-upon-Tyne , NE1 4XF

Godwit House is a one-off house on the edge of Warkworth, Northumberland. The house is designed as a response to both the client and the place. The client’s life is captured by creating places for her collection of objects picked up through work and travel. The place is captured in the orientation of windows to key views and the materials which are familiar to the agricultural structures found locally. Bedrooms are on the ground floor, clustered around a courtyard garden, the upper floor is a large living, kitchen and dining space with windows splayed to the views across the Coquet estuary. Materials are low in embodied carbon and the house needs very little energy to heat, it also generates electricity through a PV array on the roof. The project increases local biodiversity, there is a green roof, rainwater harvesting and a pond to accommodate visiting wildlife. The house is incredibly well built from good quality materials, it achieved exceptional airtightness and is a certified Passivhaus, currently the most northerly in England. The project raises standards in the region and brought new skills to local tradesmen, it was built by a contractor who had never built a Passivhaus before.