Content area
Full text
Seen from afar at dusk on a winter's day, the Crescent House in Wiltshire, England, shimmers through a veil of leafless trees. Its expansive, concave, glass wall affords brief glimpses of well-lighted living spaces within. But you must approach the 4,000-square-foot house from the rear, where a solid, curved, white wall dominates the visual field, glowing eerily in the crepuscular light. The driveway follows that curve to one end, where the entrance is quietly recessed between two crescents. Here, a 10-foot-wide aluminum door slowly pivots open, and the owner and architect of the house, Ken Shuttleworth, his wife Seana, and their two children greet you as you step into a dramatic 16-foot-high hallway.
Following the arc of the hall (which doubles as a gallery for displaying the children's art), the smooth white wall on the right breaks about midway along the path. At this point, you turn and find yourself propelled into the extraordinary 118-foot-long sweep of the inner crescent's continuous living, cooking, dining, and play areas. Bound by a 79-foot-long, concave, mullionless facade of flat glass panels, this ``garden room,'' wraps around a grassy lawn. A fire in the large concrete fireplace, embedded in the gallery wall of the outer crescent, warms the living and dining areas, and marks the de facto center of the house.
``I began with plates and teacups, then went to a compass, and finally a computer,'' says Shuttleworth matter-of-factly about his design process, as if this were de rigueur. He designed the inner and outer crescents with different widths, like phases of the moon, and placed them in an almost parallel alignment, shifted ever so slightly. While the inner crescent, with its glazed concave wall, is essentially one large room, the outer crescent, whose exterior wall presents itself so opaquely to the entrance drive, contains the bedrooms and baths. The rooms are small, spare, and windowless,...