John Pardey

The Case house assumes a simple, linear box-like form - when closed, only a single opening onto a hidden courtyard space hints at domesticity - but once occupied, a series of hydraulically operated shutters hinge down to open up the house to the sun and views.

Once opened, the mystery of the closed box is exploded, like an oyster shell revealing a refined, smooth and white interior that contrasts with the darker carapace. This revelation increases the sense of the house being a large cabinet, a jewel-box in the garden. The shutters that hinge are a dynamic element in this architecture that changes the very nature of both building and place.

The house is planned around an open internal court that allows privacy to the inner rooms, with two levels of bedrooms and bathrooms to one side and a double height living space, with a gallery above part of the space containing a master bed or study area. Onto the lake, a full height shutter hinges down to hover over the water providing a deck; a fully glazed wall to the living space is recessed into the box, maintaining privacy from any neighbours.

The Case house is formed in structural insulated panels ('sips') clad in patinated zinc that in its closed form, creates a somewhat mysterious monolith laid onto the site; once open, the exterior contrasts with the clean, light interior. External cladding options include copper or cedar shingles and timber boarding (natural or black stained cedar).

In 1958, Vilhelm Wohlert, the architect of the world famous Louisiana museum in Denmark, designed a guest pavilion in the garden of Niels Bohr, the physicist who had developed the theory of quantum mechanics. The design was deceptively simple - a floating, timber-clad box - but not quite that simple, as the whole building could be shut up with doors and shutters into a completely closed form - like a flower. This building is conceived as a seasonal place that may be closed to hibernate throughout the cold Danish winters, and then partially opened in the spring and then awoken, and thrown open in the summer months.

Our concept for the Case house therefore began with the memory of the Niels Bohr pavilion and combined this with the idea of a holiday home that opens up upon arrival, and closes down on leaving - much like the suitcase that lends its name to this house.