Field House is a minimal home located in West Sussex, United Kingdom, designed by Wilkinson King Architects. At 2.6 meters tall and carved from a single piece of Valanges stone, it stands as both sentinel and symbol of Field House’s revolutionary approach to natural material construction. This column, one of several supporting the home’s dramatic overhanging first floor, embodies architect Stephen Wilkinson’s vision of architecture as a dialogue between geological time and human craft.
Much like Carlo Scarpa’s masterful Brion Cemetery, Field House reveals its story through a careful choreography of materials. The home’s structural narrative unfolds from a foundation of polished concrete – notably minimized for environmental consciousness – through three primary actors: Douglas fir timber, solid limestone, and spruce CLT. These materials don’t merely coexist; they engage in an intimate dance of structural and aesthetic purpose.
The central staircase serves as the project’s material manifesto. Here, a floating sequence of limestone steps appears to defy gravity, while a curved English Ash bannister adds a gesture of refined craftsmanship. The deliberate void between steps and walls creates what Wilkinson calls “a conversation between light and shadow” – a detail that transforms a functional element into sculptural poetry.
Field House’s environmental consciousness extends beyond material selection to its very breathing rhythm. The home’s orientation and generous glazing participate in a seasonal dialogue with the sun, while its high-performance envelope achieves operational carbon emissions of just 15 kg/m²/year. This technical achievement is matched by the architects’ poetic sensitivity to time – evident in the untreated Western Red Cedar cladding that will gradually silver, marking the passage of seasons.
The project’s most innovative achievement may be its structural limestone loggia. Unlike traditional post-and-beam construction, these monolithic columns and beams create what architectural historian Kenneth Frampton might term a “tectonic truth” – where the expression of structure becomes inseparable from architectural form. This honest articulation of materials extends throughout the interior, where exposed CLT panels and Douglas fir joists create what one of the clients described as “a space that feels both grand and deeply intimate.”
