Case study / Sevenoaks

Ide Hill, delivered house by house.

Eight large classical country houses near Sevenoaks, around 46,000 sq ft together: the client's own concept, developed by one practice into the coordinated working drawings all eight were built from.

Ide Hill, near Sevenoaks: the development in model form, the classical country houses set in their wooded grounds. A visualisation; the houses were completed in 2007.

The facts

Technical delivery architects, Sevenoaks, Kent.

Eight detached houses of 5,250 to 6,500 sq ft each on an 11.75 acre wooded site at Ide Hill: detailed design and plot-by-plot working drawings, developed from the client's in-house concept and built out in 2006 and 2007.

The project

Eight houses, one drawing set.

46,200sq ft

Location: Ide Hill, near Sevenoaks, Kent
Client: Millgate Homes, building at the very top of the market
Houses: Eight detached, 5,250 to 6,500 sq ft each, a full lower-ground floor to every one
Site: 11.75 acres, wooded, falling across the plots
Our scope: Detailed design and working drawings, developing the client's in-house concept
Built: 2006 to 2007, issued and built in phases

Concept by the client's in-house design team; the planning consent pre-dates our appointment. Rickett Architects, then trading as Anthony Rickett Architects, produced the technical packages all eight houses were built from. About 4,290 sqm gross internal in all.

The brief

Make the concept buildable.

Millgate Homes builds at the very top of the market: large, traditionally detailed country houses for buyers who expect every line to be right. For its development of eight houses at Ide Hill, Millgate's own design team set the concept.

What the scheme needed next was an architect who could turn those designs into complete, coordinated, buildable construction information, house by house, to a demanding programme, without losing a detail.

Concept: The client's own in-house design team
Appointment: Delivery architect for the technical design of all eight houses
The hard part: Classical detailing and a full basement to every house, on a falling site
Programme: Plots issued in phases, with buyer changes absorbed mid-build

The delivery

Appointment to eight built houses.

Delivery programme at Ide Hill: Rickett Architects appointed and briefed in April 2006; plots 1 to 3 first working drawings from mid 2006; plots 4 to 8 second-phase packages from autumn 2006; basements and levels coordinated through 2006 and 2007; classical detailing built on site through 2007; eight houses completed in 2007

Appointed April 2006. Plots 1 to 3 packages from mid 2006, plots 4 to 8 from that autumn, and all eight houses built out and completed through 2007.

The scheme

Classical houses, resolved to build.

Porticos, pediments, parapets, projecting quoins and reconstituted-stone surrounds: a language that looks effortless only when someone has resolved it on paper first, over a full basement on falling ground.

The development

Eight houses in wooded grounds.

The houses sit around the central drive and the existing house, on 11.75 acres of wooded parkland falling across the plots, each in its own generous curtilage.

Indicative site layout, redrawn from Rickett Architects' drawings. Zoom for the whole development.

The houses

Large, traditionally detailed homes.

Eight detached houses of 5,250 to 6,500 sq ft, every one with a full lower-ground floor. Plots 1 to 3 carry clay plain tiles with bonnets, plots 4 to 8 natural slate.

The Ide Hill development modelled in white massing form, viewed from above: the detached classical houses and the existing house set among mature trees on falling ground, on a Rickett Architects base

The development in model form, among its mature trees. A visualisation.

The section

A full basement to every house.

Section A-A through Plot One: rooms in the roof, bedrooms, the ground floor, and a full lower-ground floor set into the slope, with a lightwell alongside to bring daylight down to it.

Section A-A, from our working-drawing set. Zoom to read the levels and the build-up.

The detailing

A portico, drawn to build.

One of the entrance porticos: cast-stone columns, capitals and a moulded entablature, fully dimensioned for setting out on site. Eaves against parapet, the stone supplier's standard sections, all resolved before anyone was on the ground.

From our working-drawing set, every dimension preserved. Zoom to read the setting out.

Scale and mix

Eight houses, around 46,200 sq ft.

No two plots repeat exactly. The schedule ran from 5,253 sq ft on plots 7 and 8 up to 6,496 on plot 6, around 46,200 sq ft of gross internal area in all.

Gross internal area of the eight houses at Ide Hill, in square feet: plot 1 about 5,382, plot 2 about 6,490, plot 3 about 5,360, plot 4 about 5,500, plot 5 about 6,469, plot 6 about 6,496, plots 7 and 8 about 5,253 each, around 46,200 square feet in total

Areas per our gross internal area schedule, November 2006. Per-house figures exclude garages.

Existing site setting

The site before the houses.

This is what was already there. The buildings in this photograph are the existing site, not our scheme: an institutional complex in mature woodland on a ridge, open country beyond, the ground falling away across what became the eight plots. That fall is why every house has a full basement.

Aerial photograph of the Ide Hill site in 2006, before the development: the pre-existing buildings and grounds set in mature woodland on a ridge near Sevenoaks, with fields and open country stretching away beyond. None of the buildings shown are the eight houses

The existing site from the air, 2006. None of the buildings shown are the eight houses.

The challenge

One set of drawings everyone built from.

Eight houses. A dozen specialists. One set.

Full basements on ground that fell across the plots, classical detailing to resolve on paper, and plots issued in phases while buyers asked for changes mid-build. Every trade coordinated against our drawings.

Discuss your scheme

The principal house of the Ide Hill development in white model form, with classical detached houses and tree-lined drives around it. A visualisation of the scheme.

The cost of a missed level or an unresolved detail was real: plots were sold to individual buyers and built to a live programme, so a basement set out wrong or a portico that would not fit held up a house and a supply chain at once.

The full story

Every house had a full lower-ground floor, built in a proprietary insulated basement system, on a site that fell across the plots. Slab levels, floor-plank layouts, drainage penetrations, tanking and column loads all had to be pinned down precisely, and made to agree with the engineer's and the basement supplier's information.

The architecture was classical: porticos, pediments, parapets, projecting quoins and reconstituted-stone surrounds. Detailing like that looks effortless only when someone has resolved it on paper first, eaves against parapet, the stone supplier's standard sections, the lot. And a wide team all worked to the same drawings: a structural engineer, the basement-system manufacturer, steelwork fabricators, a landscape architect, cast-stone suppliers and M&E consultants each needed one reliable architectural reference to coordinate against.

We issued in phases, plots 1 to 3 first, then 4 to 8, rather than thinning the package across all eight at once, and absorbed bespoke purchaser changes as they came. Where the scheme changed, we prepared the planning-amendment drawings, and flagged the developer to a tightening approach on minor amendments to consented schemes before it could become a problem.

What we did

From the client's concept to eight built houses.

We developed the client's concept into the full detailed design and the plot-by-plot working-drawing packages for all eight houses, and held the technical centre of the project from first issue to construction.

The technical design

Resolved to be buildable.

Scope: Full detailed design and working drawings for all eight houses
Detailing: Porticos and parapets that fit, eaves reading correctly behind the stonework
Stone: Reconstituted-stone surrounds tied to the chosen supplier's standard product
Basements: Dimensioned plans and sections the system, engineer and groundworkers built from

The houses kept their intended character on site, not just in the brochure.

The coordination

One reliable reference.

The team: Structural, basement, steelwork, landscape, cast-stone and M&E information checked back against our general arrangements
Phasing: Plots 1 to 3 issued first, then 4 to 8, so quality held as the programme moved
Changes: Bespoke purchaser changes absorbed during construction
Planning: Amendment drawings prepared as the scheme changed, with early advice on amendment risk

About a dozen firms coordinated to one architectural reference.

The outcome

Eight houses, delivered and built.

Built: All eight houses built out and completed in 2007
For: Millgate Homes, one of the country's most exacting housebuilders
The point: Packages the developer, engineer and specialist suppliers could build straight from

A technical architect who can take your concept, make it build, and keep a phased programme moving.