HER DARK MATERIALS

Architect Alison Brooks put bold contrast at the heart of this award-winning project, bringing out the beauty of both halves of the house in the process 

- Gabriella Bennett

“I am interested in the nature of shadows,” says Alison Brooks. It is not a statement the architect makes lightly: in the case of Windward House, a project she began designing more than a decade ago and which was named as RIBA’s House of the Year 2021, inspiration came from the blackest corners of the nearby Forest of Dean. “Dark surfaces amplify and reflect light in interesting ways that we don’t normally register,” she adds. “Shadows are very much part of the approach driving up to the house because you pass through these dark forests. And when you have the dappled shadows from the leaves [of garden trees projected] on to the house, there is a wonderful interplay.”

It’s not the first time Brooks has dabbled in darkness. Her previous projects include the Lens House in London, clad in black Corian, and Newhall Be, an estate of modern homes outside Harlow in Essex with black-painted timber façades. Windward House, however, was to take her predilection for inky exteriors to the next level.

In 2007, when owners David and Jenny Clifford bought the property, it was a dignified Georgian farmhouse in rural Gloucestershire with a slightly sorry extension. “One of the strengths was that the house has very good 360-degree views,” says David. “But because it had never been planned, the kitchen (which we all know is where we spend most of our time) was in the middle of the old farmhouse and had very few sightlines out of it. It was dark in the middle of the summer so we knew we had to move it.”