Stunning new-build in Hampshire by Snug Architects is completed with Kebony wood
Blessed with the surrounding natural beauty of two National Parks, check out this sensitively and sustainably designed new family home, located in the heart of Hampshire in London. The collaboration between the homeowner – famous illustrator/artist, Jennie Maizels, and the award-winning Snug Architects, combines bold interior design with an elegant facade built with Kebony, a global leader in the production of sustainable modified wood.
Characterised by a contextual modern design, Kebony was chosen to clad the property, carefully blending with the home’s verdant countryside surrounding to create a beautiful family home befitting of its unique location.
Snug Architects chose to design two pitched roof structures connected by a single-storey glass pavilion, making clear reference to the vernacular rural forms seen in the wider context. Wrapping around all the walls and over the pitched roof, Kebony wood, which develops a unique silver-grey patina over time, echoes the silver tones of the surrounding birch trees and contributes to the stylish, clean exterior design of the property.
Paul Bulkeley at Snug Architects commented: “The project is sympathetic to its setting and sits harmoniously in its context. Kebony’s hard-wearing and sustainable characteristics made it the perfect choice for the cladding, whilst its knotty appearance is an accurate reflection of the mature trees in the context.”
For the exterior, the wood cladding was chosen to not only add a unique aesthetic to the home, but for its sustainability credentials and for having the durability class of a hardwood, with a natural textured, tactile quality.
Developed in Norway, Kebony’s revolutionary technology is an environmentally friendly process which modifies sustainably sourced softwoods by heating the wood with furfuryl alcohol – an agricultural by-product. By polymerising the wood’s cell wall, the softwoods permanently take on the attributes of tropical hardwood including high durability, hardness and dimensional stability. Kebony’s environmental credentials and its natural weathered aesthetic made it the ideal material for the exterior cladding of family home.
A new, forward-thinking office and warehouse on the outskirts of Gothenburg, Sweden has been completed with style and sustainability prioritised in equal measure. With environmental performance acting as the key driver for the design of one of Europe’s largest office and warehouse buildings, the architects chose to use Kebony wood, a global leader in the production of sustainable wood, for the entire exterior facades, creating a striking office building which embodies the drive for environmentally-friendly architecture and design in Europe.
The idea to construct a solid-wood office building for future tenants, Sjöklint Agenturer – a Nordic fashion agency was presented at the first design and construction meeting, and became a collaborative effort between employees and subcontractors who desired to work in an office space which they would feel proud of. The new office building had to be built using smart, environmentally-friendly and innovative materials and methods, and it was unanimously agreed that Kebony wood would be the ideal material for the large-scale timber project.
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