Cross House
Handbridge, Chester CH4
Case Study
Urban Garden
Designed to blend historic character with modern living. An ever changing living picture, designed for family life.
Location: Handbridge,Cheshire. CH4
Scope: Full garden design + planting
Brief: Elegant, practical outdoor living
Urban Courtyard, Cheshire
Cross House
A finely calibrated dialogue between house and garden, Cross House is a project where architecture and landscape are conceived as a single, continuous experience.
Set behind the preserved Victorian façade of a Grade II-listed house, the intervention by Scott Donald Architecture is deliberately restrained. From the street, the building remains quietly embedded within its context. Beyond, however, the house opens into a sequence of light-filled spaces, culminating in a direct and immersive relationship with the garden.
Awarded both a RIBA North West Award 2023 and RIBA North West Client of the Year 2023, the project is recognised for its clarity of concept and precision of execution.
Cross House, Chester
A Garden as an Extension of Architecture
The rear elevation dissolves the boundary between inside and out, allowing the garden to function as an extension of the living space.
Planting is immersive and architectural, bringing texture and movement close to the building and making the landscape an inhabitable part of the home.
A courtyard garden draws light deep into the plan, creating a subtle rhythm of enclosure and openness throughout the space.
Detail, Continuity, and Restraint
A geometric language derived from the Gothic character of the original house is carried through the architecture, creating continuity between old and new.
This precision extends into the landscape, where materials, thresholds and levels are resolved with quiet confidence.
The result is a unified composition in which house and garden feel entirely inseparable.
A Collaborative Process
Cross House reflects a highly engaged client and a collaborative design process. The project demonstrates how close alignment between architect, landscape designer, and client can produce a result that is both technically rigorous and emotionally resonant.
The garden plays a critical role in this outcome—transforming a modest rear footprint into a sequence of spaces that feel expansive, immersive, and deeply connected to the rhythms of daily life.
“This garden is not an addition, it's a continuation - integral to the language of the house”
Outcome
Cross House is not defined by scale, but by precision.
It is a project that demonstrates how thoughtful intervention—architecturally and horticulturally—can completely reframe the experience of a home. The garden is not an addition, but a continuation: a living extension of the architecture, and a defining element of the overall design.
