Owner, Park House 2023
“Without doubt, the house we now have is a great place to live in. Looking out onto the park is a great pleasure, with a view that constantly changes with the season and the house sits within the park without intruding onto the park. When I approached Antony and his team to design a house for the block of land, he asked the usual question: what was I looking for? I gave him three answers: the first was the rather opaque request to build a house that suited our needs; the second was to make the most of the perspective onto the park while respecting the users of the park; and the third was to build an energy efficient house.

However, it was only after living through the design and build that I realised how much the request for an energy efficient house sat in tension with the other two requests. Much of the commentary and background knowledge around energy efficient houses relates to technical aspects of energy efficiency in cold climates. Thus to ask for large windows to overlook a park in a warm climate creates different design problems to those encountered in cold climates. It is a credit to the DiMase Architects team that they could work with the opaque request to build a house that suited our needs, the lived experience is of a comfortable house that is enjoyable to live in!”