Atelier Rook

A small architecture studio for houses on difficult ground: slopes, floodplains, the last plot on the lane. Three people, one drawing board, no renders. Every drawing on this site is a drawing of the same house, and it draws itself as you scroll.

Sheet 01 · site plan of the Weir House at Lydford, 1:500. The section line A–A is the drawing of sheets 02–04.

Sheet 02Section A–A

The house stands on a rebuilt weir wall. A concrete ground storey retains 1.1 m of bank on the river side; a timber frame above it carries one mono-pitch roof that lifts toward the water. The living room is open to the roof and the bedroom is a mezzanine looking down over it, 3.2 m up.

1Standing-seam zinc on 18 mm ply, 300 mm rafters at 600 centres, ventilated above the wood-fibre.
2Timber frame, 140 mm studs filled with wood-fibre; larch boards open-jointed on 38 mm battens.
3CLT floor 200 mm, soffit exposed and oiled: the bedroom’s floor and the kitchen’s ceiling.
4In-situ concrete plinth, board-marked, retaining the bank; the footing steps down 1.9 m at the river.
5Double-height glazing in three lights, oak frames. The post that carries the ridge is hidden in the mullion (sheet 03).
6The old weir wall rebuilt in its own line. The larch deck sits on it, 2.5 m above the winter river.

Sheet 03Structure

Three lines carry everything: the concrete walls on grids A and B, and one glulam post on grid C standing inside the glazing. The CLT spans A to B; the rafters span the full 11.7 m to a ridge beam over the glass. Loads are in kN per metre run, from the engineer’s first pass.

1Ridge beam 240 × 600 glulam GL28, one piece, craned over the plinth before the frame goes up.
2Post 240 × 240 glulam inside the mullion, pinned at the plinth on a stainless shoe.
3CLT 200 mm, five layers, spanning 5.7 m; the balustrade is its edge turned up.
4In-situ walls 300 mm, C30/37, board-marked on the room side.
5Footing 900 wide on grid C, 1.9 m below the floor, on the gravel that the weir left behind.
6Wall plate 240 × 240 glulam, the ring that ties the frame to the concrete at +6.1.

Sheet 04Light study

Two noons decide this section. On 21 June the sun stands at 62°, the 900 mm eave cuts it on the glass at +5.7 and it lands only 3.1 m into the room. On 21 December it arrives at 15°, crosses the whole floor, climbs the wall on grid B and reaches the bed on the mezzanine. The north window over the bed never sees direct sun.

1Floor lit 3.1 m deep in June: the sofa sits in shade, the deck outside in full sun.
2Winter sun crosses the balustrade and lands on the bed and the wall at A up to +4.3.
3The eave is sized to this angle: 900 mm, no deeper, so the winter sun is not lost.
4North window 4.0–5.4, even light on the bed all year.
5The transom at +5.6 carries a blind for the low winter glare.

Sheet 05Ground floor plan

Three rooms and a deck on one slab. The kitchen faces north and the lane; the living room faces the river through the full-height glass; the stair climbs along the concrete wall to the mezzanine. Nothing on this floor has a corridor.

Room schedule
No.	Room · finish	Area	Level
G01	Entrybrushed concrete	17.4 m²	+0.00
G02	Kitchenpolished concrete	18.9 m²	+0.00
G03	Livingoak boards on battens	31.4 m²	+0.00
G04	Stairoak treads, open risers	4.1 m²	0 → 3.20
G05	Decklarch, open-jointed	9.6 m²	−0.05
F01	Mezzanine bedroomCLT, oiled	19.2 m²	+3.20
F02	Bathterrazzo tiles	5.1 m²	+3.20
	Gross internal area	96.1 m²

Site 0.31 ha · footprint 84 m² · 27 % of the plot in the floodplain, none of the house.

1Three lights to the deck, the middle one a sliding door 2.1 m wide.
2The stair rises along the wall; its underside is the pantry.
3North light over the worktop: 3.0 m of window, no wall units.
4Larch deck on the weir wall, 1.5 m wide, the river 2.5 m below.

Sheet 06The practice

How a house gets from a walk on the site to a set like this one. One dense sheet, because that is what we would hand you.

How we work

We draw before we model. A section in pencil on the first visit, redrawn by hand until the levels are right. Software comes in at stage 3, and it is asked to keep what the pencil found.

We go in the rain. Every site is visited in bad weather before the brief is written. Where the water goes decides where the house goes.

We price at every stage. A cost plan is attached to every issue of the drawings from stage 1, so no decision arrives without its number.

We stay on site. One of us is on the build every week until the scaffold comes down; the drawings are updated from what was built, not what was hoped.

We are three. Two architects and one person who runs the office and the site diary. Larger jobs bring in an engineer we have worked with since 2019.

Stages, weeks and what you hold at the end

Stage	Weeks	You receive	Fee
0 Brief	2	One page: what the house is for, what it must cost	—
1 Survey and feasibility	4	Levels, flood data, two site sections, a yes or a no	5 %
2 Concept	6	Plans, sections, a card model, cost plan A	15 %
3 Planning	8 + 8	The planning set, the flood statement, the neighbours met	15 %
4 Technical design	10	The full set at 1:50 and 1:5, specification, cost plan B	30 %
5 Tender	4	Three priced tenders, a recommendation	5 %
6 Construction	40–60	Weekly visits, the site diary, valuations	25 %
7 In use	52	Two visits, the as-built set, a year of answers	5 %

Fees are a share of the agreed fee, itself 11–13 % of the build cost for a new house. Stage 1 can be bought on its own; most people do.

The kind of drawing stage 4 produces: window jamb, plan detail at 1:5. Every line on it is a decision that has already been priced.

Drawing register · Set 26-014 · The Weir House

No.	Title	Scale	Rev A	Rev B	Status
01	Cover and site plan	1:500	2026-08-30	2026-09-12	Issued for the preview
02	Section A–A	1:50	2026-08-30	2026-09-12	Issued for the preview
03	Structure	1:50	—	2026-09-12	Engineer’s first pass
04	Light study	1:50	—	2026-09-12	Two noons only
05	Ground floor plan	1:50	2026-08-30	2026-09-12	Issued for the preview
06	The practice	1:5	—	2026-09-12	Issued for the preview
07	Contact	—	—	2026-09-12	Issued for the preview

Sheet 07Contact

The last sheet of a set is the one with the practice on it. Ours is below, drawn to the same frame as the house.

Practice: Atelier Rook Ltd
architecture for houses on difficult ground
Studio: 14 Cutler’s Yard
Lydford, over the bridge, first door on the left
Telephone: +44 1822 000 140
Monday to Thursday, 9 to 6
Email: studio@atelierrook.example
answered within two working days
Partners: Ana Rook, architect
Jonah Marsh, architect
Office: Teodora Vale, practice manager
keeper of the site diary
Insurance: Professional indemnity £2 m
public liability £5 m
A first meeting: Two hours, on your site if it exists, free; bring the levels if you have them and the flood map if you don’t

Request a first meeting

The register is generated here, in your browser, from the sheets on this page; nothing is sent anywhere.

Key plan, 1:2 500. Six minutes from the station, over Mill Bridge.

Revision table · colophon

Rev	Date	Description	By
A	2026-08-30	First issue of the set for the Plate preview: seven sheets, one house.	AR
B	2026-09-12	Type set in Archivo Narrow and Public Sans (SIL Open Font License), served from this folder.	AR
B	2026-09-12	Every drawing authored as SVG in real units (centimetres; the detail in millimetres) with three pen weights. No photographs, no renders, no third-party art.	JM
B	2026-09-12	Built as one HTML document with CSS and a small script; native scrolling; the drafting cursor exists only for a fine pointer.	TV

End of set7 sheets · 26-014 · Rev B