RIBA Downland Prize – Category Winner – 2010

International Property Awards – Winner – 2010

A dilapidated 1950′s villa once occupied this unique site, overlooking St. Brelades bay in Jersey. By dismantling parts of the existing house and introducing a two-storey extension, open plan living spaces were created on the ground floor with direct access to the garden and pool. All the bedrooms on the first floor have windows orientated towards the views across St. Brelades Bay.

Passive stack ventilation combined with cutting-edge renewable energy has resulted in low running costs and low carbon emissions. The building is a comfortable, contemporary family home, which sets a new standard of design quality on the island.

An experimental house in Guernsey by MOOHUS, MOOARC’s design research lab.

Le Portelet is a new family home, which sits within the wooded escarpment overlooking Portelet Harbour. The project was conceived as three timber blocks nestled into the hillside allowing views of the surrounding landscape from all principle rooms.

The palette of materials blends with the beach setting and mediates between water, earth and sky.

Completed in October 2011.

This building is the synthesis of the people involved as much as the realisation of an end building. The brief at the beginning was to create a home and as a self build the project has taken a huge commitment by the Clients to complete. Through the whole process the clients, the architects, engineers and all the other members of the team have not lost sight of the ambition to create a beautiful, contemporary house within a difficult urban site. The building is a unique response to the individual constraints and opportunities of the site and as such will not be seen as a model for mass housing. What the building does successfully achieve is to create a home, built on a very tight budget on a brownfield site previously seen as unusable.

Guernsey Design Awards – Winner – 2003

RIBA Awards South East – Winner – 2004

RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize – Shortlisted – 2004

The house was developed as a fluid, three-dimensional plan, inspired by ‘The Nolli plan of Rome’ 1748. The internal volume of the 15th Century barn forms the heart of the home. On the lower level, kitchen and dining is position below a more formal living space up on a mezzanine level. A more relaxed living/play space is set at the front of the house, opening out to a terrace. At the rear, the sleeping block is linked to the living space via the entrance and vertical circulation. The bedroom block is stepped in across the width of the site to allow a visual link out into the rear garden from the dining space. The house was conceived as a separate sleeping block linked to the barn via a glazed entrance piece allowing the mass of the original barn to breathe. The retained structure of the barn has been revealed, with the internal space for living expressed as a single volume.

The Economy of Space

Maximising the potential and opportunity, creating generosity and more importantlyadding value through design for the client is crucial to the delight of each project. We aim through stretching each material and space to its limit to obtain beauty with an economy of means and design flexibility. We strive to push the boundary of restrictions and constraints from planning to construction. Flexible spaces, created with innovative storage solutions, sliding screens or movable roof lights open up and link rooms at will.

Each project is developed through a series of themes; sleeping and living, entrance and privacy, lifecycle, public and private, intimacy and openness. These themes generate a program for building a series of elements and develop the spaces and connections in the form of storage walls, movable screens, roof lights etc. Through the manifestation of a number of built projects.

MooArc continue to innovate and experiment with the concept of the extended familyhouse, transforming simple functional ideas into the built form, creating award winning inspirational architecture, which is both innovative and affordable. MooArc’s buildings create both privacy for the family and encourage the individual to engage with others in the building and the world beyond.

Featured Project: Embercourt Road.

Week 07: Beam and Block Floor completed.

Week 05: Dwarf walls and sub surface ducting installed.

Week 02: Ground excavated for foundations:

Week 00: Existing site:

Located in the heart of Islington, London, the project was a complete renovation of two small houses to form a large family home.

Civic Trust Award Winner – 2005

Competition

Our winning entry for the Footes Lane Stand Competition focused on providing the best facility for both spectators and athletes.  The design was unanimously selected by the judging panel from over 20 entries. The 600 seat stand had to serve both athletics and football so we designed seating modules that could slide to different locations to give the best possible view of each sport – the finish line for athletics and the centre line for football.

Site Works

The building commenced on site in July 2002 and is due for completion in March 2003. MOOArc have sought a simplicity in both the layout and the detailing of the building. Concrete, metal and glass combine to provide clean and durable details suited to the scale of the facility.

The Island Games

The size of the grandstand has allowed us to provide the optimum sporting arena for the Island Games, confident in the knowledge that once the excitement of the games is over there will be a perfectly sized training facility for the island’s athletes.  It is exciting to be involved in a sports project that so obviously benefits the community in the long term. low maintenance layered entry split changing areas optimum viewing.

MOOARC’s architectural language has developed from within the city – unlocking tight urban sites to create unique innovative spaces for living, working and relaxing. The cost and scarcity of land in our cities create the opportunity for ingenuity and innovation, maximising the use and enjoyment of architecture for both the public and private realms.

Our houses seek to create spaces that are filled with natural light and material richness. With adaptable furniture and building components we create flexible living spaces, which allow people to escape from or engage with their surrounding environment.

The urban framework has instilled a discipline in our approach to architecture and has influenced our work in rural locations. Wherever we work, our design principles are driven by a collective ambition to produce modern buildings that best serve the people that use them. Each project is treated as a new challenge and provides us with a new opportunity to innovate and create the unexpected, adding value for both the individual and the built environment.

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