Acme brings sensitivity and creativity to the challenge of building a contemporary house in a rural setting.

Oast houses can be found all over the Kent countryside and today many of them are converted into homes. They would be built with pointed towers, so that hops harvested from the surrounding fields could be hung up to dry before being sent off to a brewery.

"It was an agricultural typology from the 15th century up to the 19th century," — ACME director Friedrich Ludewig.

In order to make the house suitable for modern family life, ACME had to break some of the usual rules of oast house construction. Typically the towers would be built in a cluster, without any gaps in between. Ludewig's team realised they needed to introduce gaps, to integrate the living spaces with the surrounding garden.