Cornish Cottage

Cornish Cottage is a rare and ancient vernacular that has its roots in a building that served both domestic and agricultural functions. Jonathan Tuckey Design were charged with the task of renovating and creating an addition to one of these special buildings whilst protecting and enhancing this endangered typology. The 400-year-old building sits in low meadows that roll down to the sea about half a mile away, its situation reminiscent of a boat turned full stern to the waves of an approaching storm beyond the cliffs. Designed for a family who enjoy the outdoors, the house was conceived as a set of clearer defined spaces that act as routes through the property connecting the land to the sea.

The project’s main challenges lay in the building’s long linear form and a compartmented internal volume, the house being a sequence of numerous smaller rooms. Retaining the character of the building was a necessity, however, in many places the design sought to amplify the legibility of certain aspects. There was a wish to create a theatricality through errant walls and floors, which would betray the houses long history and a specific relationship to the coastline. The motive was to speak of a rising and falling motion, swell and eddy, crest and comber.

A link was drawn between the house and the ancient boat building techniques that survive in the local area. These were displayed through the careful and visibly human crafted details throughout the building. However, these were also born out of necessity, as no two material junctions were the same due to the aberrant shapes of the rooms. Throughout the interior, older walls have been insulated and restored retaining their palimpsest. In the upper level there is an intricate game at play between the more recent hand of the woodworker and the forgotten hand of the stonemason, where the walls and ceilings meet. This detail talks about an eccentricity of the property and the motive of tailoring a new architecture to rest mutually with the existing.