Extend or Start Again?

The clients came to us with a question that many homeowners on generous plots eventually face: should we extend what we have, or build something entirely new? The existing house at Spring Shaw occupied a substantial site in the Chilterns but failed to make the most of its position, its surroundings, or the way the family wanted to live. The rooms felt disconnected, the views were largely ignored, and the building offered little in the way of energy efficiency.
The brief was equally considered: the new house needed to accommodate generous family living alongside a fully functioning commercial kitchen from which the clients could operate a culinary business. It also needed to be beautiful, not just to live in, but photogenic enough to attract location hire bookings as a revenue stream. This was not simply a house to live in. It was a home to work from, to share, and to be proud of.
After careful appraisal of the options, the decision was made to demolish and build new. The architectural direction was clear: a confident contemporary modernist house, designed from the inside out, that would sit thoughtfully within the Chilterns landscape whilst making the very most of it.

Modernist Architecture Built with Precision

Simon Mack Architecture designed Spring Shaw around how the spaces would actually be used, allowing the architecture to follow from that understanding rather than imposing a form upon it. The result is a modernist new-build home constructed using Insulated Concrete Formwork (ICF), a method that delivers exceptional thermal performance and airtightness, enabling the large expanses of high-specification glazing that define the building without compromising comfort or energy efficiency.
The plan is arranged so that standing in the entrance hall, you can see straight through the house to the landscape beyond, a moment of arrival that immediately communicates the generosity and clarity of the design. Large, flowing principal rooms connect naturally to one another, whilst the plan also creates quieter, more intimate spaces for everyday life. The commercial kitchen is fully integrated into the home, purpose-designed to meet professional standards whilst remaining part of the domestic architecture rather than feeling like an afterthought.
Externally, the building is composed through a series of considered architectural planes that form terraces and covered spaces at each level, drawing the outside in and giving the house a strong, composed presence on the site.

A Home That Works as Hard as It Is Beautiful

Spring Shaw is a house that genuinely delivers on every level of its brief. Step inside and the quality of the architecture is immediately felt, light fills the spaces, the landscape of the Chilterns AONB draws the eye in every direction, and rooms of genuine scale flow easily from one to the next. The ICF construction means the home is warm in winter, cool in summer, and insulated from the extremes of the British climate throughout the year.
The integrated professional kitchen has allowed the clients to establish and grow their culinary business from home. And the house itself, with its photogenic modernist lines, exceptional light and beautiful setting, now generates an additional income as a sought-after location hire venue for photography and film.
Spring Shaw is everything a well-considered new-build house should be: beautifully designed, expertly detailed, built to a high specification, and above all, made for the people who live in it.