A house designed for the slope, the view, and the sun.

The proposed house is single-storey, around 238 m² of internal area, raised on stilts above the natural slope of the hillside. The form runs with the contour rather than fighting it, which keeps the visible mass low and answers the landscape sensitivity of this part of the Cotswolds. Letting the slope flow beneath the building does two things at once: it minimises ground disturbance, and it creates a 46 m² suspended deck off the principal living space that frames the southern view directly.

The materials are deliberately quiet. Stone retaining walls, drawn from the local vernacular, hold the entrance courtyard, the garage, and the upper terrace. Dark vertical timber cladding takes the building above the stone, recedes against the woodland behind it, and matures with the site. Pitched roofs and a single chimney borrow the proportions of the rural Cotswold building tradition without copying its language.

Vehicles are handled at the top of the site. Garage, parking, and arrival sequence are pulled to the road end, so the house itself is left undisturbed in the landscape. Stepped stone walls and planted terraces resolve the level change between drive and house, turning what would otherwise be cost — moving earth — into the entrance experience.

The north elevation is closed. All principal rooms, all main glazing, and the deck face south. This is straightforward Passive House logic applied to the geometry of the site: the elevated position, the southward aspect, and the woodland screening combine to create exceptional conditions for a low-energy home — high solar gain when you want it, deep insulation everywhere else, running costs that will be a fraction of those associated with a conventional new build at this size.

The plan is organised around a single 59 m² vaulted kitchen, dining and living space at the heart of the house, with floor-to-ceiling glazing onto the deck and the valley beyond. The pitch of the roof gives this room genuine internal volume; the south wall gives it the view. From here the plan stretches west into a wing of three bedroom suites, each with its own bathroom, and east into a study, TV room, utility, cloakroom, and the integral garage.

The materials palette inside continues the discipline of the outside. Pale timber, dark accents, quiet stone, natural light from the south. The cloakroom is the one moment in the house where the design takes a bold decorative position — a deep green tile and warm light — because every house benefits from one room that is unapologetically itself.

The design is intentionally a starting point. Every self-builder has their own vision, and the scheme is intended to be tailored fully to the purchaser's brief, needs, and budget before a fresh planning application is submitted.

The floor plan reads as a single long bar, with the bedroom wing offset to the west to break the visible elevation. The kitchen-dining-living room sits in the middle and opens onto the deck. Vehicles, plant, and storage are pushed to the perimeter, leaving the principal rooms to face south with as much glazing as the brief allows.

A short film that opens on the site as it is today, then lifts into a flythrough of the proposed scheme — across the south elevation, in through the gable glazing, through the living space to the kitchen, and round to the fireplace, before resolving into the still renders.