8 August 2022 · By Fran Williams. Photography by Edmund Sumner

Knox Bhavan has completed March House, a prefabricated, flood-resilient home raised on stilts on a flood plain on the banks of the River Thames near Cookham in Berkshire

The house uses modern methods of construction (MMC) showcasing a new prefabricated cassette system developed by the practice in partnership with modular manufacturer BlokBuild and engineers Price & Myers.

It is located on a picturesque stretch of the River Thames used extensively as a public amenity, forming part of a collection of houses along the riverbank, many self-built as summer houses. The bank opposite is permanent pastureland and so the home looks onto farmland, National Trust sites and Winter Hill, Maidenhead.

The new house replaces a two-storey detached house built in 1926, which was poorly built and formed an obstacle to the flow of water when the river flooded.

Flood-resilient strategies are incorporated to ensure the home will withstand the site’s predicted increased flood risk for the next 100 years. The single-storey dwelling has flexible, open plan interiors, future-proofed for the client, a former professional dancer, and appears to hover above the ground, surrounded by a pre-existing river garden.

It is raised off the ground on a table of slim galvanised steel stilts, fixed onto concrete piles supporting a lightweight steel chassis. This lightweight frame touches the ground gently, dispensing with the need for a concrete slab. The house is constructed of oriented strand board (OSB) cassettes which are insulated and clad in stained larch in a repeating pattern of narrow planed boards and wide-sawn cladding, referencing the houseboats formerly moored on the site.

Expansive frameless fixed windows with opening shutters frame views of the landscape. Solar gain is reduced through overhangs and hidden external slatted timber blinds.

The zinc roof features a green roof planted with native wildflowers and grasses. Deck access on three of the elevations provide a stepped entrance and wide steps onto the river jetty.

The house’s plan is configured around a curated collection of Danish mid-century furniture, lighting and art. Bedrooms bookend the main lounge and dining room space on the river side, emphasising the north-south axis. The guest suite is accessed by a small lobby so that it can operate as a separate wing if needed. The kitchen sits to the south-west corner of the house and a study in the south-east corner.

Balustrades are of galvanised steel and handrails of oiled hardwood to complement the furniture. A new boathouse and garden shed are clad in galvanised sheeting.

The site now incorporates a borehole for potable water and its own sewage plant. For the project, Knox Bhavan developed its own carbon calculator system, called KBe, for benchmarking.

The practice has a second house under construction in Hertfordshire which uses the same timber cassette system.

Using MMC directly translated our drawings into a swiftly assembled, ready-to-use external envelope. March House demonstrates how these technologies can be applied to the most specific of briefs. Sasha Bhavan, founding partner, Knox Bhavan

I am happy to grow older in this inspiring home. I use every room when I’m here alone, but equally the house works for entertaining family and friends in its warm and welcoming spaces. I now have an energy-efficient and flood-resilient house which reflects the expertise and design vision of its architect. Elizabeth Rose, client

Start on site April 2019 Completion July 2021 Gross internal floor area 166m² Gross (internal + external) floor area/site area 2,130m² Form of contract JCT Intermediate (Traditional) Construction cost Undisclosed Architect Knox Bhavan Client Elizabeth Rose Structural engineer Price & Myers M&E consultant Paul Bastick Associates QS Ian Thomson & Company Landscape consultant Elizabeth Rose (client) Approved building inspector Building Control Solutions Main contractor Philiam Construction Timber frame subcontractor BlokBuild Joinery Five Furniture CAD software used Vectorworks

Percentage of floor area with daylight factor >2% Unknown Percentage of floor area with daylight factor >5% Unknown On-site energy generation Approx. 75% Annual mains water consumption Unknown, fresh water sourced from a bore hole for potable water Airtightness at 50Pa 2 m³/h.m² (estimated) Heating and hot water load 40.6 kWh/m2/yr Overall area-weighted U-value Unknown Design life 60 years Embodied/whole-life carbon 142 kgCO2eq/m2 embodied, 7.14 kgCO2eq/m2 operational Annual CO2 emissions 7.14 kgCO2eq/m²

Tags Flood resilience Knox Bhavan Maidenhead

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