Looking Glass Lodge in East Sussex features glass facades that reflect the surrounding woodland

[Celerity]

https://www.dezeen.com/2022/12/02/looking-glass-lodge-glass-facades-reflect-surrounding-woodland/







Michael Kendrick Architects has completed a woodland retreat and holiday let in East Sussex, England, featuring timber-clad facades and large windows that allow views right through the building. Looking Glass Lodge is situated within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and was developed for a client whose parents established a nature reserve there in the 1960s.











The client and his wife wanted to be able to share the location with guests and commissioned architect Michael Kendrick to design a low-impact and sustainable lodge that would allow visitors to feel immersed in the forest. The building is set on a sloping site in the grounds of the client's family home. It was constructed without felling any existing trees in a natural clearing that is hidden deep in the woodland.









"For us, the sloping topography of the site offered an exciting opportunity to create an immersive holiday let," Kendrick told Dezeen. "As the lodge sits over a natural embankment, we were able to create a design that offers guests a real sense of elevated living, high amongst the trees."











The project brief stated that the lodge should respect the existing fauna and ecology, so the architects proposed a modestly sized structure that is clad in timber to echo the surrounding trees. "Though our design for the lodge is subtle and simple in many ways, the uniqueness of its architecture is most evident in its respect for its setting," Kendrick pointed out.

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