The Hideaway
Competition - Design a retreat for up to 10 people within a natural landscape
Location: A field in England – Cornwall.
Imagine being lovingly wrapped in the wings of a Cornish hedge and massaged in the stillness and vista of an English bird hide. During your stay you stretch, read or paint, whilst later retreating to a dans le noir supper with friends and newcomers, against a Jacob Collier soundtrack. You sit out around the fire toasting marshmallows and fall asleep beneath the stars. You have found your ‘Hideaway’.
‘The Hideaway’s’ subtlety is part building, part landscape. As borne from the ground, and gifts those on retreat with an outlook to a ‘field in England’. You might take a run, stroll, or cycle around the beauty of the adjacent landscape. You might sit and read or meditate, surrounded by a darkened library, and see where your mind takes you. You might visit the treatment room for a massage. You might practice your finest downward facing dog at sunrise or paint the landscape at sunset. You are in your ‘Hideaway’.
An OSB lined timber frame forms the habitable spaces contained within and supports the external multi program deck overhead. A series of simple rooms are defined in a linear plan layout with the section portraying an enlarged Cornish hedge. Rest and treatment rooms carve out dioramas like a Constable painting. As a series of niches that respond to the scale of the use rooms within allow angled shade throughout the day. A single hall connects spaces that are both private and communal. A shared kitchen/table allows for food preparation and group dining. Bunk and double bedrooms provide accommodation for 10+ people.
This ‘Hedge’ typology could be introduced to different rural areas and allows the unimpeded view of a field as part of a rotational crop system. Here there is a new type of yield, assisting farmers in reducing their requirement on government support. The Hideaway utilises a self-supporting façade of locally available rock/stone, retaining the crafted skill set of drystone walling, acting as a catalyst for rural youth employment whilst retaining the historic hedges that date as far back as the Bronze Age. Flora and fauna, lichen-dressed and carpeted with thrift, complement hawthorn toppings and hazel hedges, creating species sanctuary and protecting wildlife corridors.
The socioeconomic impact of The Hideaway seeks to allow a relatively low-cost local build investment, to provide additional income to the farming and agricultural communities of the British Isles and further afield. With as much as 61% of farm profits currently derived from government subsidies, The Hideaway seeks to reduce this dependency, whilst preserving habitats, decreasing flood risk, and assisting with windbreak, across livestock and agricultural fields.
You will truly find what you’ve been searching for in your Hideaway