Wishing Well is a minimalist residence located in Jersey, United Kingdom, designed by Fieldwork Architects. Coastal architecture rarely achieves the material coherence seen here, where geology becomes building fabric and regulatory constraint transforms into conceptual foundation. The tension between preservation and invention – between what must remain and what can evolve – has produced a house that reads less as renovation than archaeological emergence, as if the landscape itself generated the architecture through slow accretion.
The project originated from a planning paradox. Jersey’s strict coastal regulations required retaining a portion of the existing dormer bungalow’s wall throughout construction, forcing the proposal into extension rather than replacement status. Rather than treating this as limitation, Fieldwork conceived the new structure around the ghost of the old, tracing its rectangular footprint with a two-story stabilized rammed earth wall that encases the remnants within. This formal diagram – old enclosed by new, past embedded in present – establishes the conceptual clarity that drives every subsequent decision.
Material selection operates at the intersection of performance and place. The rammed earth wall addresses Jersey’s climatic extremes through inherent thermal mass, moderating temperature swings between summer heat and damp winter cold. At ground level, local granite wraps the earthen core, forming a protective layer against Atlantic turbulence while establishing a colonnade along two elevations. This covered terrace mediates between interior shelter and landscape exposure, creating transitional space that acknowledges the coast’s volatile weather patterns.
The most sophisticated gesture involves material hybridization. Fieldwork ground local Jersey granite – distinguished by its characteristic pink tone – into fine dust, then mixed it into the stabilized rammed earth aggregate. This custom composite required extensive research and iterative testing with Rammed Earth Structures and Elliott Wood, progressing from small samples to full-scale application. The result pulls the granite’s delicate coloration into the wall’s structure while achieving precise textural and tonal finish. Where the earthen core remains exposed at the home’s center, it functions simultaneously as construction documentation and sculptural focal point, celebrating the labor-intensive process that produced it.
