Today Architectural Digest travels to the Isle of Wight on England’s south coast to tour Saltmarsh House, a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) House of the Year 2023 shortlisted project. Sitting on the edge of a vast tidal marsh, this stunning pavilion home, designed by architect Níall McLaughlin, floats above the ground on a lightweight steel frame. Truly ingenious is the property’s structure, which was prefabricated off-site and lifted into place to minimize disruption to the surrounding nature reserve. Offering uninterrupted views of the marshes and bay beyond, this impressive home is a testament to the symbiotic relationship between architecture and nature, proving they can coexist in harmony for generations to come.
Read more about the ingenious Saltmarsh House here: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/ingenious-british-home-appears-float-surrounding-meadows
Read more about the ingenious Saltmarsh House here: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/ingenious-british-home-appears-float-surrounding-meadows
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:10 It's perfectly clear that for most cognitively modern humans
00:14 who've lived for 100,000 years, they never had anything
00:17 that we would describe as architecture.
00:20 And probably just over 10,000 years ago,
00:22 they started producing what we would
00:23 recognize as architecture.
00:26 And the question that I ask is, why does that happen?
00:29 And what purpose was architecture playing
00:31 that hadn't been required before?
00:32 Architecture is one of the things that creates
00:37 representation of time itself.
00:40 What can tell you what 1,000 years is like better
00:42 than a city?
00:44 Or what can tell you that you are connected to your ancestors
00:47 and that you pass on values to your ancestors,
00:49 to your children, better than the continuity of the built
00:52 fabric of a place?
00:53 It seems to me that this representation of deep time
00:59 is a fundamental vocation of architecture.
01:01 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:10 I'm Neil McLaughlin, and I'm the architect of Salt Marsh House.
01:15 We were contacted here at the studio
01:17 by a woman who asked us to design
01:19 what was a tiny pavilion house on the coast
01:22 on the Isle of Wight.
01:25 We wanted to make a structure that was incredibly lightweight.
01:28 And so we began to think about this kind
01:30 of cat's cradle of very lightweight steel tubes
01:33 that would hold up an overhanging roof.
01:35 That was really the beginning of the idea of the project.
01:39 So you have this roof here that's
01:40 made of these sort of pyramidal roof lights.
01:43 And then you can see this kind of cat's cradle structure.
01:46 And when you look along the length of it,
01:48 you see that simple AB rhythm.
01:50 So it's A, B, A. And this A is the same as that A.
01:55 This one has got all the solid objects tucked underneath it.
01:59 And this has got the veranda that opens out towards the sea.
02:02 And then you have this central space
02:04 that balances those two things out on each side.
02:06 And then you have this little row
02:08 of boxes which are tucked in like pieces of furniture--
02:10 the bathroom, the bedroom, and the kitchen.
02:13 And each one has its own separate box, which will then
02:15 look out into the woodland.
02:17 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:27 You walk across this bridge that connects
02:29 the land with the pavilion.
02:30 And you arrive on this deck, which
02:33 is the first bay, really, of those four
02:35 bays of the main structure.
02:38 And it's also the one that shows you most clearly
02:41 what the structure is.
02:42 You've got those four poles that are connected together
02:45 at regular intervals, giving you this quadruple column, which
02:48 holds up the roof structure above it.
02:53 You get this amazing view across the marshes.
02:55 With the high tide, you get this amazing reflective surface.
02:57 It's bringing in the light.
02:59 You have this amazing wildlife here
03:01 with the birds come and go, which
03:02 is an absolute beautiful thing to witness.
03:04 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
03:07 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:16 And here we are in the main space.
03:18 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:28 That's the dining area.
03:30 And these large roof lights.
03:32 And back there is the seating area.
03:34 There's the fireplace with your three large windows looking out
03:37 across the marshes and the harbor.
03:39 So the three large guillotine windows are all motorized.
03:43 You can open and close them with these three switches here.
03:46 So you simply flip the switch, and then
03:48 those windows start opening.
03:51 Each of the panes weighs about half a ton.
03:54 And they're counterweighted with the same amount of metal.
03:58 So the motor that opens and closes them
04:00 has to do just a little bit of work.
04:04 A large part of making this internal space really bright
04:07 and light is having those six triangular roof lights that
04:10 sit above the seating and the dining area here.
04:13 Now that the sun's come out, we get a bit of benefit of it
04:16 coming through and washing through the space.
04:19 So you have this ever-changing play of shade and light
04:22 together with the sea coming in and out, which
04:24 makes the space so special.
04:26 Also from the inside, you can really
04:28 read those four bays of roof structure,
04:31 each with this pyramidal roof sitting on top, which
04:35 references the repetitive boathouses
04:36 from across the harbor, but also the Victorian greenhouses
04:40 that used to exist at the top of the hill
04:42 from the Victorian times.
04:43 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:46 Over here, we've allowed for these wooden shutters
04:53 to be integrated in the back of those benches.
04:56 So they come up to a certain height.
05:01 They still allow plenty of light to come in and for you
05:04 to be able to see out and be aware of the weather
05:06 and the landscape around it.
05:07 But it offers you a certain degree of privacy.
05:11 All these shutters are decorated with these beautiful hand
05:14 painted wallpapers that make a connection between the shutters
05:19 and the landscape beyond.
05:21 When you're looking at the grasses,
05:22 you sort of feel reminded of the marshland behind it.
05:27 And here we have the seating area
05:28 with a couple of sofas and armchairs,
05:32 creating a nice and cozy atmosphere for a coal-leashed
05:35 winter evening.
05:37 And you can light a fire, sit here,
05:41 and just be in the space.
05:42 The fireplace sits on a granite plinth,
05:44 which connects it back to the earthwork
05:46 and to the landscape outside, whilst also being just
05:50 a non-combustible hearth to the fireplace.
05:52 [MUSIC PLAYING]
05:56 So here you have the bathroom pod
06:04 with the shower on the left and the bathroom over here.
06:10 All the doors are sliding doors.
06:12 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:16 Open the window, which opens fully
06:22 and you get the view of the garden and the woodland beyond.
06:26 And for a little bit of additional privacy,
06:29 there's also shutters here that then
06:32 have, in turn, mirrors fitted to the inside.
06:36 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:39 So this is the middle pod, the bedroom,
06:48 with two doors either side, plenty of inbuilt furniture
06:51 here.
06:53 This is the only bedroom in the pavilion.
06:56 It's mostly used by either the clients themselves or guests
06:59 who stay down here.
07:00 It's an amazing place to be, close to the garden,
07:03 but also extremely close to the water.
07:05 Just like the bathroom window, this opens fully up.
07:08 So if you wanted to, you could have the completely opening
07:10 window to the garden space.
07:11 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:15 So here you have the kitchen pod.
07:17 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:21 With everything a small kitchen needs,
07:26 there's a dishwasher and fridge over here.
07:30 And otherwise, there's just plenty of storage.
07:33 Again, the window opens fully.
07:35 There's a little step outside, so if you
07:37 needed to nip in and out of the building,
07:39 it's almost like a back entrance door as well.
07:41 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:44 It's always amazing to come to a finished building
07:53 and to experience a space that one has thought about
07:56 in a lot of detail before.
07:57 We've been studying this building so much in the office,
08:00 and we sort of almost knew every nut and bolt in the building.
08:03 But when you actually walk into the space,
08:06 it's always different.
08:07 And it's been a great pleasure to come into the space
08:10 when it was finished, because it felt, in some ways,
08:13 exactly the way we wanted it and redesigned it.
08:15 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:19 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
08:22 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:28 You can see in this image here, we
08:37 have a simple detail like this at the edge of the building,
08:40 where the width of the window frame
08:41 separates an internal and external structure.
08:44 So this cat's cradle you see here
08:46 is brought down to the ground on the inside.
08:49 But equally, if you looked on the outside,
08:50 there's a paired column on the other side
08:52 that allows you to see it being brought down to the ground.
08:55 But for architects like us who are interested in detailing,
08:58 the proof of the concept always comes down
09:00 to what do you do when that's then turning a corner.
09:03 And so we were really thinking about this as a problem
09:05 that we couldn't resolve.
09:07 And it just happened that I was on a field trip
09:09 with my students.
09:10 We went to Jaipur in India, and we
09:12 visited this beautiful place on the Amber Fort, which
09:15 is called the Elephant Pavilion.
09:17 And as I realized that this 16th century structure
09:19 had exactly the same principle of paired columns,
09:22 so I lay on the floor of the pavilion
09:24 and made a drawing of the elephant columns.
09:27 And what I realized was not just that they
09:29 had developed this beautiful architecture of paired columns,
09:32 but that when it comes to the corner,
09:34 they had turned the pair into a four.
09:37 And this gave us the principle which
09:38 we used for turning the corner in the building.
09:41 And one of the things that we had to do to achieve that
09:44 was to get a right angle piece of triple glazing.
09:46 It means when you're standing inside the building,
09:49 you just get this tiny glimpse past the column
09:51 of light coming through.
09:53 We realized that we designed a building that
09:55 would be a real challenge for most builders to build.
09:58 And we were fortunate to work with some extraordinary
10:01 builders, a company called Millimeter, who are based
10:03 on the south coast of England.
10:06 You can see the complexity of this seven-way intersection
10:10 of tiny, thin rods.
10:11 And they were able to use robotic tools
10:13 in their own workshop to build from those.
10:17 It was an interesting process where the whole building was
10:19 mocked up in the workshop before they brought it to site.
10:23 They knew that what they were constructing
10:24 would be possible to do.
10:26 That really helped because the site is a bird sanctuary.
10:29 For a lot of the time, we had an ecologist on site
10:32 with a notebook wandering around telling the builders
10:35 the impact that their work was having
10:37 on these rare species of birds.
10:39 And so the builders had to be super careful at every turn
10:42 that they weren't doing anything to disrupt the mating
10:44 or nesting of these birds at different times.
10:47 So having had the opportunity to completely rehearse it
10:49 beforehand and then make it again on site
10:52 was a very good way of doing it because we
10:54 were able to retain a degree of tact in relation
10:56 to this very fragile wildlife.
10:58 The landscape around it hasn't been created yet.
11:07 So that sense of it having its back to woodland
11:10 will make a big difference to the way
11:11 you understand the building.
11:12 And I like to think about it as being
11:14 a bit less kind of machiney and precise and precious
11:17 when I go back in 20 years' time,
11:19 but has got the light of the leaves coming through trees
11:22 and a sense of having aged into its place.
11:25 Maybe it would feel more ordinary, less obviously
11:28 spectacular, and more kind of balanced with its environment.
11:32 But that always takes time.
11:35 I think it's really curious when you work on a building
11:38 for quite a few years and you've been
11:41 working on models and drawings and details.
11:43 The project becomes a long litany
11:45 of small decisions that have to be resolved.
11:48 But it becomes a procedure of working through small things
11:51 in order to achieve a larger thing.
11:53 And for me, one of the most extraordinary moments
11:55 is when everything that you brought together
11:58 through a million small decisions
11:59 is suddenly just a piece of the world.
12:01 And I've never really quite got over that.
12:05 What I'm always looking for is to have the opportunity
12:07 to go to the building and to try and find
12:10 some moment of stillness that I can just sit in it
12:13 and try and be there and say, is this what I intended?
12:17 Does this feel right?
12:19 And then watch the light of the day changing.
12:22 And at that moment as an architect,
12:23 you have to just let go of it and say, right,
12:26 it's not mine anymore.
12:27 Off it goes into the world.
12:29 And then once I've done that, I never
12:31 think of the buildings as being particularly something
12:33 that I made anymore or have my authorship.
12:36 I just think of them as being bits of the world.
12:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]
12:43 [MUSIC PLAYING]
12:46 [MUSIC PLAYING]
12:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]
12:53 (music fades)
12:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]