Pear Tree House, Dulwich

Concrete Elegance interview from the lecture - Home Brew: a focus on self-build architecture.

Presentation by Jake Edgley, Edgley Design for Concrete Elegance on his project Pear Tree House.

The concept for this backyard house, wedged between rows of terraced houses on either side, was the solitary a pear tree - a remnant of the site’s history as a Victorian fruit orchard. The house has been built around this tree, creating an internal courtyard that brings light and air to the centre of the plan, while turning the house inward to remain private from the surrounding terraced houses.

The ground floor walls are cast in concrete with vertical timber boards, with an expressive natural grain and texture that blends into the surroundings. The locally-sourced larch formwork was carefully chosen to give a relief that was prominent but refined to suit the domestic scale of the building.

The larch boards were re-used to build the external timber clad walls to the courtyard and garden.

In contrast to the external walls, the internal stair core has a smooth ply finish to give a softer surface where it is touched by the inhabitants. To offset the matt concrete finishes of the walls, a polished concrete floor was installed throughout the ground floor.

Innovative detailing helped to ensure a thermally efficient building envelope. The concrete external walls were cast in-situ, with two leaves either side of  the insulation. The inner leaf sits on structural insulation blocks, and the two leaves are tied together using basalt fibre ties.