Dulwich Manor
Client: Private
Value: Not disclosed
Time: 2023-2026
Status: Construction
Location: Dulwich, London
Dulwich Manor is a new build sustainable home designed in the Georgian style. The traditional detail and material selection was developed closely with the clients, and we worked with interior designers, Andrea Benedettini Interiors, to deliver this beautiful seven bedroom home in Dulwich.
Portland stone cills, door surrounds and a portico are impressive features to the front elevation along with traditional timber sash windows. Decorative modillion cornice gutters around the roof create a flourish at the top of the facade, accentuating the bell flare of the eaves.
Proportions are an integral quality of traditional Georgian buildings, for example the use of the ‘Golden Ratio’, a mathematical proportion where a line divided into two parts, has the same ratio as the whole line to the longer segment, determining the ratio between width and height of 1:1.618.
Burgess Architects embraced these principles as a new design challenge at a fundamental level, utilising the tool across multiple elements of the elevation, e.g. the plan form, bays, windows and doors, along with a careful consideration of the traditional Georgian methods of design generally.
Early in the process we utilise diagrammatic tools, such as the adjacent organigram, to quickly test and map relationships between spaces in the house. Before progressing into 3D models or drawings, this type of study allows us and our clients to quickly consider how spaces connect, and the circulation of the building.
The organigram allows us to explore adjacencies, separate formal and informal living, and resolve the practical logic of a house: where the boot room sits relative to the kitchen, how the entrance sequence unfolds, which spaces benefit from proximity and which require separation.
It is a fast, iterative tool that aids a considered arrangement of spaces that supports the way the household operate.
The house has hand made flemish bond bricks from Buckinghamshire, and handmade clay plain tiles from Sussex. These conceal a sustainable, warm timber frame structure within. The bricks are laid in traditional lime mortar to avoid the need for movement joints.
The building looks like a traditionally built Georgian house but is actually a highly insulated, air tight house heated by modern technology, and with a Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery system bringing fresh air to all the habitable rooms, pre-heated using the stale air extracted from bathrooms and kitchens.
The roofs are insulated with thick wood fibre insulation, a natural and breathable material that works with the building fabric to regulate performance, internal comfort and air quality.
In winter, it keeps the house warm by significantly reducing heat loss through the roof structure. In summer, its exceptional thermal decrement delay (the time it takes for external heat to travel through the insulation and reach the interior) means that even on the hottest days, heat is slowed to the point where it arrives too late and too weakened to cause discomfort.
The result is a roof that passively regulates the internal climate across the seasons, reducing the demand on mechanical systems. For those exceptional days when temperatures are extreme, air conditioning is provided to key rooms, ensuring comfort without over-specifying energy-intensive systems throughout the whole house.
