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This astonishing house, located in the ancient hamlet of Ansty on the Dorset / Wiltshire border, was built in 1962 by Arup to the designs of David Levitt. Alison and Peter Smithson made later additions to the property, making it undoubtedly one of finest architect-designed homes in Britain (see the history section below).
Ansty
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History
The house at Ansty was built in 1962 on land that was sold to Roger Rigby by Victor Tucker, a gardener and chauffeur who has been given the plot by his employer, Mrs Frere. Tucker started to build his own house on the plot (the foundations of which, as well as a terrace that he built, are still there to this day) but soon ran out of money for the project and sold the plot to Rigby.
Rigby was, at the time, the Practice Manager at the renowned engineering and architecture firm Arup Associates. Rigby employed the services of David Levitt to design a house for his newly acquired plot, having been recommended him by Sir Philip Dowson. Levitt was then the bright, young architect of the Arup office (Levitt left Arup soon after the house was built to start his own very successful company, Levitt Bernstein). The structural engineer who oversaw the house design was Ron Marsh.
Not far from Ansty, and at around the same time that the house for Rigby was constructed, the architects and writers Alison and Peter Smithson built their own holiday home. Naturally the Smithsons and the Rigbys gravitated towards each other and soon they were both frequent visitors to each other’s houses. Over drinks on the terrace at Ansty, the Smithsons and Rigby would often discuss potential improvements to the property and indeed, in 1971, a garage and small studio was added. Designed by the Smithsons, the studio / summerhouse is the most interesting construction – a building that is at once contemporary (in its use of concrete and discordant geometrical design) and ancient (in its use of stone detailing and slit windows).
Later on, in the 1980s, the Smithsons added what is one of the finest features of the property – a poured concrete path that leads from the driveway, up the garden and to the front of the house. The path adds definition and purpose to the sloped site and is wonderful visual combination of ramp and shallow steps.
A further Smithson alteration, the covering of an outdoor area to make a porch for the main house, was entirely in keeping with the original Levitt / Dowson design so can not be counted as being of great significance.
An archive dedicated to the house at Ansty can be found at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
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