Yoo Forest House

Yoo Forest House is located within the Lakes for Yoo complex, a 263-hectare estate of bespoke homes in the heart of the picturesque Cotswolds countryside. The inspiration for the woodland home hails from the minimal lines of classic modern architecture, born of the seminal pavilions created in Europe in the 1920s and the prairies of the US Midwest in the 1950s and drawing on the houses designed by the likes of Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe and other modernist pioneers. The building is single story, both as a practical consideration for the occupants but also to ensure it is as unobtrusive as possible in its setting, while there is also no interruption or conflict with the forest canopy. The home is laid out horizontally to contrast the height of the woodland around it with two contrasting sides to the home with the position of the rooms a deliberate dialogue about living, solids and voids. The front of the building features a solid timber clad wall, interrupted by a statement 2.7m front door and thin strip windows that reference the woodland location, while the back of the house enjoys floor to ceiling glazing, bringing the key living spaces closer to the forest. The floor slab of the home is set on a series of steel columns that create a plinth, giving the impression that the home is floating just above the surrounding landscape, further creating the impression of ethereal calm. The roof overhangs all around the building to provide passive solar shading while also increasing the drama of the form, sitting above a stone deck that runs continuously around the home and which is completely flush with the wooden flooring in the house, allowing the living space to naturally extend outdoors when the glazed doors are open. The stone deck steps down to a terrace at the back of the building while a water feature runs under the deck and reveals itself as it runs through a channel into a pond, sitting within the eyeline as you enter the house through the front door and creating an added sense of arrival. The materiality of the building is all about simplicity with individually applied strips of cedar, high performance glass and steel with quality solus ceramic porcelain tiles used to edge the projecting planes while the deck and water feature are constructed of local Cotswold stone.