The Calm Hill

The Calm Hill: A Home Held by the Hillside.

Set high above the Wye Valley, The Calm Hill is a quiet, future-facing home — a thoughtful replacement for an outdated bungalow, reimagined to embrace both landscape and longevity. Built gently into the western rise of its garden, the house sits low and grounded, its green roof folding into the hillside and softening its presence. At the threshold, a traditional stone wall creates a sense of quiet enclosure, revealing an inner courtyard and supporting the elevated spaces above — a respectful interplay of weight and lightness, privacy and openness.

The home is arranged as a pair of interlocking volumes: one single-storey wing for communal family life, and a two-storey form for restful retreat. Glazing is placed with precision — framing long views northwards over the Wye Valley, and drawing the landscape inward. Materials are kept simple and local: stone, timber, and zinc, chosen for their endurance and ability to age with grace. Designed for low energy and high comfort, this is a home attuned to its setting — quiet in character, confident in performance.

Project Detail

The Calm Hill is a low-energy, four-bedroom new-build home constructed to replace an existing poorly insulated bungalow in Gloucestershire. The building retains the original frontage line and integrates with the existing driveway and a new garage/carport structure. Set partly into a gently rising garden, the massing is minimised by embedding the west elevation into the landscape and employing a green roof to further reduce visual impact. The ground floor includes an open-plan family space with connected service areas, while a two-storey private wing houses bedrooms and a snug, acoustically separated from the living area. Materials include local stonework, vertical timber cladding, and a zinc roof, selected for both contextual sensitivity and long-term performance.