Sheppard's pie - architectural design of a house in Devon, England

Architectural Review, The, April, 1998 by Anne Macevoy

A revival of immemorial constructional techniques suggests ways of creating sustainable buildings which grow out of their locality and tradition.

Rammed earth is a traditional material for housebuilding in the south-west of England, where its soft shapes, usually whitewashed and protected by thick layers of thatch, do much to create some of the most beautiful villages in the country. David Sheppard has re-awakened the craft in a house on a magnificent, very windy site which looks out south over the sea to the fabled Eddystone lighthouse and west to little fishing settlements and the gigantic natural harbour of Plymouth Hoe.

For all its local tradition, rammed earth is used by Sheppard in a quite radical way, and you do not at first realize that the house is partly made out of its own site. Two massive 20 metre long walls set 20 degrees apart run counter to the slope and define both entrance and view. Their 160 tons of red Devon earth come directly out of the volume they enclose and act as a thermal flywheel for the whole place and frame a double-height glazed entrance. The main living spaces are on the upper floor and enjoy amazing views south and west. A spiral stair delivers you to a wooden bridge connecting the two wings which are cranked in plan to fit site and views. With massive random rubble external walls pierced on the lower level by very small windows, the wings have a green oak inner structure of posts supporting purlins which themselves carry the rafters of the glass and slate roof. The inner timber structure is braced diagonally with stainless steel yacht wires and has scarf-like Japanese scissor joints in the horizontal members over the posts.

A quiet but most unorthodox sensibility for the natural world and the relationship of dwelling to place runs through the whole building. For instance, there is a stream running in a limestone trough through the entrance area. It is fed from a holding pond planted with lilies, and the flow is pumped round by a photovoltaic cell - the amusing but elegant Heath Robinsonish device is intended to act as a cooling mechanism in summer and must have been a lot of fun to think about and make.

The entrance is flanked by gabions filled with earth, stone and straw seeded with local wild plants. But planting in the glazed entrance hall is bizarrely exotic, with opuntias and yuccas dominated by an Australian black boy throwing strange shadows onto the vertical Devon earth.

Few young architects have started their careers with such empathetic clients - and done so well for them.