Details
1293/0/10008
12-AUG-03
EPSOM ROAD
Forest Lodge House
II
Private house, designed 1964-6, built 1967, architect Michael Manser; engineer Jack Dawson.
The building is a steel-framed box, raised from the ground on short stilts that rest on concealed concrete block foundations. The frame forms the external boundary, and is now painted Manser's preferred dark green rather than the original black. This frame is filled with various glazed components within ARC aluminium frames, which were intended to be interchangeable: panels, louvres, sliding panels and doors, all in tinted glass, and dark green coloured opaque glass panels. The materials thus dictate the facades, which read almost identically, with the exception of the small canopy over the main entrance. The facades also reflect the garden. The roof is felted (not original), with small, pyramidal roof lights above corridor and bathroom spaces.
The house is single storey with a rectangular plan, accessed via protruding wooden decking platforms, constituting a bridge to the drive on the east (entrance) facade, and providing steps down to garden level on the north and south (garden) facades. The interior is less 'open' than might be expected from the transparency of the exterior. The house is divided linearly into sleeping and living accommodation by a row of bathrooms and cupboards along the central north-south axis. Living room, entrance hall, dining room and kitchen are arranged from left to right along the east front. The west part contains four bedrooms, reached via a narrow corridor. The room divisions are lightweight stud walls made of resin-bonded plasterboard and hardboard, intended to be flexible (although still in their original position), whilst retaining good sound insulation. Sliding walls between living room, entrance hall and dining room help the living spaces operate in a semi-open-plan manner.
The interiors are designed simply, comprising a series of glass, mirror, wood, carpeted and painted planes. Doors are full-height. The rooms enjoy uninterrupted views of the garden, with substantial glazing and large sliding panels serving to blur the boundary between house and garden. This is especially effective in the living room and main bedroom, which have corner windows. The interior has a high level of finish, supervised closely by the client. Original fitted furniture remains, as do bathtubs and cupboards. The kitchen still retains original wooden fitted units, painted bright orange according to the original scheme. These were specified by the client, and provide the one splash of colour in this otherwise visually quiet house. Floors are carpeted, except for the tiled kitchen and bathrooms. Original cylindrical light fittings were designed by the architect. The timber is of excellent quality: ceilings, doors, sliding panels and joinery. There is hot air heating through vents in the floor. Windows are screened by simple blinds.
The garden is designed by John Brookes, with whom Manser frequently collaborated, and his planting largely remains. It incorporates part of the old garden wall belonging to the neighbouring Forest Lodge (not included in the listing), in a deliberate attempt to retain something of the history of the site. The house is set back from the road, and was designed to nestle in the garden.
The house is exceptionally well finished, and survives little altered. It is an important and rare example of a modern steel house, by a key architect of the genre. Manser, often working with Dawson and Brookes, was the most prolific designer of steel houses in the 1960s, most of them for clients near his own residence outside Leatherhead. He had been introduced to the work of Philip Johnson by Ove Arup when a student, and had gone on to take a special interest in steel structures and classical proportions. He acknowledges Forest Green House as one of his finest and least altered works.
Sources:
Michael Manser, 'One-offs', in Building With Steel, no.16, December 1973, pp.16-17
RIBA Journal, February 1980 p.49.
Neil Jackson, The Modern Steel House, London: E and FN Spon, 1996.
