Amazing Hotels - The Balancing House

Balancing House

The Balancing House dramatically cantilevers over the landscape, providing views from its huge panoramic windows over woods, ponds and meadows.

From the road, the house is almost invisible, with a pitched roof that faces the long straight driveway and suggests a property with a small and traditional shape. However, the whole house is in fact 30 metres long, extending right over the grounds it occupies. At its midpoint, the house starts to cantilever over the descending slope; a balancing act made possible by the rigid structure of the building; resulting in 50% of the barn being in free space, and giving a wide view over the Suffolk landscape, adjacent lake and surrounding garden. The long sides of the structure are well hidden by trees allowing privacy inside and around the barn. The exterior is covered in reflective steel tiles, resulting in the barn changing its exterior with every new season.

Balancing House

Within the interior and closest to the driveway are a kitchen and dining area. A series of four double bedrooms follows, each with separate bathroom and WC. In the very centre of the house, the bedroom sequence is interrupted by a hidden staircase providing access to the garden beneath. In the far, cantilevered end of the house, a large living space is created. Throughout all the rooms, full height sliding windows, roof lights and a glass floor give wonderful views and access into the garden and surrounding landscape, allowing visitors the opportunity to reconnect with the rhythms of nature.

The interior has been fitted out with great imagination by the Dutch design office Studio Makkink & Bey. On the walls and floor coverings, paintings by Constable and Gainsborough (both local artists) have been sampled and manipulated, and in places resemble the geometry of works by Mondrian. Studio Makkink & Bey have made some bespoke items of furniture for the house, and have put together a collection of some of the most beautiful chairs, tables, sofas and lamps by leading contemporary Dutch designers.

Balancing House

The house was designed by the Dutch firm MVRDV, who have won a world-wide reputation for the ingenuity, playfulness and comfort of their designs. It was built by Living Architecture, the brainchild of Swiss philosophical writer Alain de Botton who wrote "The Architecture of Happiness."  The group created a series of homes in the United Kingdom based on high-quality, modern architecture and de Botton's work on the connection between environment, architecture and happiness.

• Architect: MVRDV
• Executive Architect: Mole Architects
• Interiors: Studio Makkink & Bey
• Contractor: O Seamans
• Structural Engineer: Jane Wernick Associates
• Quantity Surveyors: Boyden Group LLP
• Clerk of Works: Steve Foot, Techs Project Management

Partners for the interior:

• All appliances provided by Miele UK - oven, combination microwave oven, induction hob, fridge, fridge freezer, washing machine, condensing dryer.
• Kitchen equipment provided by David Mellor Design.
• Body products provided by REN skincare.
• Bed linen by Peter Reed luxury linen.
• Artwork in collaboration with Colchester and Ipswich museum and Huntington Collection

Balancing House

The Balancing House in Suffolk is situated a few miles inland from the coastline on the edge of a nature reserve near the historic towns of Walberswick and Aldeburgh.  It sleeps eight people and is clad in silver tiles It has also won a series of travel and design awards, including

• RIBA Awards 2011 (winner)
• Brit Insurance Design Awards 2011 (shortlisted)
• Red dot design award (winner)
• Conde Nast Traveller Innovation & Design Awards 2011 (winner, Leisure)

Living Architecture has also just launched its sixth property: a boat-shaped room where you can spend the night, perched on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's South Bank.