The Kohl Residence

The brief

Set into a south-facing hillside above Windermere, the Kohl Residence began with a single constraint: the house must be invisible from the lake. Working within that limitation became a generative act — the building is carved into the slope, its grass roof continuous with the fell above.

The dwelling is organised as a sequence of interconnected chambers at different levels, each oriented to a specific view: the lake, the fell, the sky. A long entry passage hewn from the rock leads to a central hearth space where the landscape suddenly opens up in full panorama.

Structural stonework uses locally quarried limestone throughout, with steel used sparingly for long spans. Interior walls are lime-plastered and left to breathe. Energy is supplied entirely by a ground-source heat pump system embedded beneath the grass roof.