The Croft by Western Design Architects
The Croft sets a contemporary profile on the hillside above Warminster, United Kingdom, where Western Design Architects shape a compact house around long south-facing views. Inside, the open-plan arrangement pulls family life toward the terrace and garden, turning a modest plot into an easy, everyday circuit. Sliding glass, pale finishes, and a shaded balcony keep the house bright yet controlled through changing English weather.
Light pours across the long terrace, glancing off glass balustrades and the warm metal soffit before flooding into the kitchen and dining room. Inside, a single line of activity stretches from cooking to lounging as the garden falls away below.
This is a contemporary house in Warminster, United Kingdom, conceived by Western Design Architects as a modest but flexible family home built into a slope. The new construction replaces an older dwelling and shifts the living areas to capture wide southerly views while keeping access from the street level and parking simple. Plan and circulation drive the project, turning a tight hillside plot into a calm daily route between garden, terrace, and interior.
Stacking Living On The Slope
From the aerial view, the house reads as two clean horizontal bars, one tucked into the hillside and one raised above the garden. Everyday living occupies the upper level, where a full-width glazed wall lines up kitchen, dining, and sitting areas along the terrace. Bedrooms and quieter rooms sit below, opening straight onto the lawn and sheltered planting, so family life can shift up or down with weather and time of day. Steps and paths track the boundary, keeping movement around the plot legible despite the gradient.
Drawing Daily Life To The Terrace
On the main level, large sliding glass panels erase almost the entire south wall, turning the combined kitchen and dining room into an extension of the terrace. A long timber table runs parallel to the glazing, encouraging meals that linger near the view, while the adjacent island anchors cooking at the heart of activity. Orange drum pendants hang low over the table, their warm tone echoing the coppery soffit outside and marking this linear room as a place to gather. With garden and valley in full sight, even routine tasks stay oriented toward the horizon.
Connecting Open Plan To Garden
Because the plot slopes away from the road, the architects place entry and parking at the rear so access to the main level stays nearly level. Once inside, the plan unfolds in one direction only: kitchen to dining to family room, then out to the continuous balcony above the lawn. Frameless glass balustrades preserve views from seated height, and the deep roof overhang tempers sun and rain while still admitting generous daylight. Below, doors from the lower floor open to gravel bands and planted beds, giving children and guests a direct relationship with the garden without disturbing upper-level routines.
Color And Light In The Family Room
At the far end of the open-plan run, the family room shifts the mood with a patchwork sofa, patterned ottoman, and a softly colored geometric wall. Round mirrors punctuate this surface, catching light from the high horizontal window opposite and giving depth to what could have been a plain end wall. A recessed ceiling tray with concealed lighting adds another layer of glow, keeping the room bright even when sliding doors are closed on a winter evening. Though playful in palette, the layout still respects the simple circulation spine that defines the house.
As the day turns, sun tracks across the terrace and down into the garden, while rooms above and below stay stitched together by clear paths and long views. The Croft keeps its footprint modest yet feels generous because every route leads outward to air, sky, and planted ground. Plan, rather than size, underwrites the sense of ease on this English hillside.
Photography courtesy of Western Design Architects
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