Whole view shot of the house.

Photography: Oliver Perrott

About Sandy Rendel Architects

Sandy Rendel Architects is a young award-winning practice founded in 2010 with a reputation for delivering well-crafted architecture and inventive design. We offer a full range of architecture, interior, and urban design services and have experience with a wide range of project types and clients.

Our work addresses the unique physical, environmental and cultural contexts of each project to deliver long-term value and enduring meaning. We bring experience rather than preconceptions to each project to produce thoughtful, sensitive, and original designs. We believe in the importance of close collaboration with clients, users, contractors, and consultants to ensure that each design is a unique and appropriate response.

We are committed to a sustainable approach to architecture. This is underpinned by ensuring our work has the minimum environmental impact, through its construction and ongoing energy usage, and the maximum life, through its durability and tolerance to change.

Sandy Rendel Architects was named RIBA South East Emerging Practice of the Year in 2017.

Due to the glass walls, the first floor's interior is visible from the side of the house.
Due to the glass walls, the first floor’s interior is visible from the side of the house.
Glass and local ash-glazed brickwork are inset into an in-situ concrete frame at ground level, and walls and the roof are covered in a continuous skin of Cor Ten steel.
Glass and local ash-glazed brickwork are inset into an in-situ concrete frame at ground level, and walls and the roof are covered in a continuous skin of Cor-Ten steel.
The living space, dining room, and kitchen counter are all visible, and there are some narrow steps leading to the second floor.
The living space, dining room, and kitchen counter are all visible, and there are some narrow steps leading to the second floor.
The expansive views of the river and its low-lying flood plain to the south and west from the dining area.
The expansive views of the river and its low-lying flood plain to the south and west from the dining area.
The wooden wall matches the wooden handrail of the staircase.
The wooden wall matches the wooden handrail of the staircase.
A full and detailed plan of the concrete house.
A full and detailed plan of the concrete house.

This four-bedroom house sits on a prominent brownfield site in the South Downs National Park on the banks of the River Ouse. Built off the roughcast concrete river wall, it enjoys expansive views to the south and west over the river and its low-lying flood plain. Behind the chalk face of Cliffe Hill rises steeply to provide an imposing backdrop.

The distorted vernacular form orientates the interior towards the key views and provides sheltered external pockets around the building to buffer the sound of the adjacent road. Its scale is broken down by carving away the ridge and by adding two single-storey elements on the roadside. These frame a new entrance courtyard and reflect the grain of adjoining building fabric that abuts the pavement line.

A simple palette of materials emphasizes the building’s form and reflects the qualities of the site and its surrounds. An in-situ concrete frame at ground level is in-filled with glass and local ash-glazed brickwork. Above, the walls and roof are clad in a continuous skin of Cor-Ten steel, which will self-weather to a striking ochre color, echoing the local soft red clay brickwork and tiles and alluding to the past industrial heritage of the site.

The project was completed in the autumn of 2015 and featured on Series 16 of Channel 4’s Grand Designs. South Street won a Sunday Times British Home Award 2016 for the best one-off home in the UK, was shortlisted for the Manser Medal 2016, and has won numerous other awards including a Sussex Heritage Award and a RIBA South East Award.

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