On the River Exe near Topsham, a town in Devon, a county in the United Kingdom on the Cornwall peninsula, the architecture firm Out of the Valley is renovating a Dutch-style merchant's house for a couple eager to spend their retirement there.
Among the architecture projects by the studio Out of the Valley, this represents the essence of their vision of sustainable design solution. The cabin is elegant in its simplicity, with its monolithic shape reminiscent of traditional beach huts. The exterior of the house in charred cedar is a nod to the black and bituminous hulls of boats bobbing nearby.
The interiors invite visitors to different sensory experiences. The granite hearth provides an intriguing texture, while the English oak wood walls give a feeling of warmth, releasing a scent of wood into the air. From the living space, doors without corners open, dissolving the boundary between interior and exterior, framing expansive views to the east and west at the same time.
