A country home in Kent called Caring Wood

Caring Wood is an extensive country home for three generations of the same family, incorporating formal, communal and private spaces. Set in 84 acres in Kent, its brief was twofold: to embody the spirit of the English country house and estate in a design that would embrace its context and landscape; and to provide a sustainable home for life, both in the sense of carbon neutrality and in terms of a flexible design that can accommodate an entire family and evolve with them, potential being extended for future generations.

The client wanted the form of the house to reflect the notion of the family’s interdependence and independence. In response, the architects developed four equal, pronounced forms in pinwheel formation, rotating around an inner courtyard. Macdonald Wright researched and integrated the legacy of the English country house and the specifics of the Kentish vernacular to develop the site layout, palette and materials at Caring Wood, whilst Maxwell manipulated the geometry of the built form to evolve the striking configuration of clustered oast roofs around the hidden inner courtyard. The roofing is made up of 150,000 handmade peg tiles from Sussex on a CLT structure with wood fibre insulation.

Interiors feature areas for entertaining on a grand scale in the mezzanine and more intimate family rooms, all pervaded with a sense of calm, enhanced by the free- owing circulation, pared back aesthetic and continual views over the gentle contours and varied planting of the external landscape. The internal courtyard has been designed as a contemplative ‘skyspace’. A counterpoint to the views over the surrounding land, this is a hidden spot, completely shut off from the house and landscape.