Project background

On a 2.6 acre plot in Bosham West Sussex, Susan and Stephen Gladwell are fulfilling a dream of building a unique home with a contemporary green oak frame. Stephen has a close affiliation with the site because his Godmother owned the existing home and he watched it being built when he was just 14 years old. A typical 1960’s brick and timber clad construction it will in due course be demolished giving the new house a stunning view over Bosham Harbour.

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Client

Mr. & Mrs. Gladwell

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Architects

Elspeth Beard Architects

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Carpenter Oak & Woodland were approached by the Gladwells and architect Elspeth Beard in January 2006. Whilst the clients were keen on a timber framed building they were certainly not looking for a pastiche of a period home. The frame is largely traditionally jointed but uses stainless steel bracing to help maintain the clean lines and sense of open space at first floor level. One of the challenges was that the design called for multiple timbers to coincide at the same place on the main supporting posts.

Unlike a steel frame where numerous members can simply be welded together at a single point, we often need to pull framing elements away from each other so that we have sufficient timber to cut the necessary joints. In this instance we used splines rather than the more usual mortise and tenon joints.

The frame is now up and the builders can continue to construct the rest of the building around it. Stephen Gladwell commented ‘It was a pleasure having you all on site and very exciting to see it go up so swiftly’.