Edge House, Aberporth

2024 RSAW Award

Edge House, Aberporth, Ceredigion
Hyde + Hyde Architects for Private Client
Contract value: Confidential 
GIA: 227m²

Edge House sits dramatically on a Ceredigion cliffside site overlooking the Irish Sea. Drawing on its surroundings, it soaks in the irrepressible views with care and precision, offering a well-crafted four-bedroom home.

From contextual studies to the design of bespoke furnishings, the house is a holistic response to site and setting, forming a sensitive relationship to its location. The project took more than 10 years from concept to completion, with periods of pause and change, but both client and architect maintained the vision and quality of the design in the final build.

The main entrance from the modest street frontage  reflects a smaller scale of house in response to the neighbouring context. A double-height entrance hall provides the organising centre of the plan to take you either upstairs to the living spaces or into one of the bedrooms on the ground floor. To free up space to the rear for uninterrupted views towards the sea, utility and supporting spaces are located on the street side.

The contrast from the smaller street side rooms to the expansive open spaces at the rear add to the drama when you finally gain sight of the views. Each bedrooms is rotated on its axis towards these views and immediate adjacency of the cliff’s edge. Upstairs, open-plan living, kitchen and dining spaces provide stunning panoramas of the sea, and the cantilevered upper floor brings you closer to the cliff.

The internal detailing and finishes are also aligned to respond to the setting. Tones are kept intentionally dark and subdued to allow the blue and grey hues of the sea to fill the interiors. The window detailing helps maximise the views: frames are situated externally, in front of the facade, to hide them from sight as you look out from within.

Due to such proximity to the cliff’s edge, the structure consists of a concrete foundation and ground floor, with a lighter timber-frame upper floor. On the ground floor concrete is fair-faced, offering a self-finish, with the timber frame above made of glulam (glue-laminated timber) beam members which are also left exposed at roof level.

The client had spent summers growing up in the area and had very fond memories of the idyllic location. They had explored the possibility of remodelling the existing building on the site, but it left them feeling disconnected from the setting. The new house sits on the footprint of its predecessor, helping the client  connect to the past. Safe to say that it provides that much deeper connection to the surroundings, and arguably even amplifies the experience.

See the rest of the RSAW Wales winners here. And all the RIBA Regional Awards here

To see the whole RIBA Awards process visit architecture.com

RIBA Regional Awards 2024 sponsored by EH Smith and Autodesk