Set in the southern tip of the garden of the client’s main house, the Butterfly House, by Oliver Leech Architects, provides a new home for the client’s mother so that she can live on-site. The two bedroom self-contained dwelling includes space for a live-in carer, while also enabling the client’s mother to lead an independent, lightly assisted life well into the future. Five years in the making, Butterfly House has been a careful exploration of light, volume and material.
The roof-forms are expressed internally with exposed larch beams that create varying feelings of compression and expansion as the roof rises to a row of clerestory glazing, pouring light into the spaces throughout the day. The volumes converge over the entrance lobby where the walls and ceiling playfully meet in a darkened arrival space, as a prelude to the main rooms. A gentle ramp draws views through the house and connects the sunken entrance level up to a higher level and out to the garden.