Location
Private garden
Year
2025
Client
Sophie and Marc Laurent
Scope
Architecture, landscape, furniture
Duration
10 months
Site
Long garden beneath a 200-year-old oak
One room at the end of the garden, built for reading, music and long summer evenings.
A timber pavilion at the end of a long garden. One room for reading, music and summer evenings.
The pavilion sits under an old oak at the far end of the garden. A deep timber roof floats on slender columns, glass slides away on three sides, and a stone hearth anchors the room through the colder months.
Aa
The glass pavilion among the planting
01
Glass sliding open to the garden
02
The pavilion room, doors open
03
From brief to building.
The question we were asked, how we answered it, and what changed once people moved in.
01
The challenge
A protected oak whose roots could not be disturbed, a family that wanted a room for every season, and a garden that had to remain a garden.
02
Our approach
The pavilion stands on screw piles placed between the roots, so no excavation was needed. A deep timber roof shades the glass in summer, and a stone hearth makes the room usable all winter.
03
The outcome
The oak is untouched, and the pavilion has become the family's favourite room, used for concerts, reading and long dinners for ten.
Excavation around the oak
Sides that open fully
Months from design to completion
Floating among roots.
Screw piles touch the ground lightly between the roots, and the roof reaches far enough to shade the glass in summer.
White walls beneath the old tree
Timber, glass and one stone.
A light structure and a single heavy element, chosen to sit quietly under the tree.
“It is the room we never knew we needed. We walk down the garden every evening.”
Sophie Laurent, client
Architecture
ARCHEA
Interior design
Ines Albrecht
Structure
Structura Consulting
Landscape
Atelier Verde
Builder
Hart Timber
Photography
Studio Lumen
Next project
The Stone Bath House
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