Richard Horden

Richard Manaton Horden (26 December 1944 – 5 October 2018), was a British architect based in London. Following an early career with Norman Foster, where he worked for ten years, he established his own practice Richard Horden Associates in 1985, which became Horden Cherry Lee Architects in 1999. Richard Horden is the pioneer of small-scale structures constructed with the most advanced materials and techniques available.

Career Horden was educated at Bryanston School in Dorset and trained at The Architectural Association in London. He received a scholarship for a tour of America in 1968, where he saw the influential 1950 Rockefeller Guest House in New York by Philip Johnson, the California houses by Craig Ellwood, and the sculptures of Kenneth Snelson.

Projects

Yacht House, New Forest (1984) Ski Haus (1991) Ski Haus was conceived while skiing late and high in the Alps: evening sun, a beautiful, clear, starlit night, twinkling lights of the village in the valley, a reluctance to return: Would it be possible to stay here in the beautiful, cold silence? The SkiHaus serves as a mobile alpine hut or a ‘hard tent’. The lightweight, all-aluminium structure weighs only 315 kg and is designed to be lifted into position by helicopter. It is well-insulated using lightweight aviation materials and has a self-sufficient energy system powered by solar and wind generators. Since 1992 the SkiHaus has been tested by the team together with mountain guides and helicopter engineers at varying altitudes in the Swiss Alps up to 3901m (next to the ‘Kleines Matterhorn’). It will be used further by the local mountain guide centres for ski touring, climbing, guide training, ski races and medical positions. Besides its rescue and safety functions, the SkiHaus is an architectural vehicle with which to explore the third dimension and the wide clear spaces on top of the mountains. It has been situated on the Swiss-Italian ridge close to the ‘Kleines Matterhorn" since May 2004 and is currently used as shelter and accommodation for skiers and climbers.

Queens Stand, Epsom Downs Racecourse (1992) The Yacht House (1992) The Yacht House is so called as it is built with aluminium and stainless steel spars from a Tornado Yacht. The owner worked for a local yacht component supplier. The winner of a BBC 2 Television Innovation Award in 1994 and exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, Home Delivery Show in 2008. The building structure is arranged in a taught discipline of columns on a 3.7m grid. The house is a perfect square on plan made up of 5 x 5 bays giving a footprint of 342 sqm. The entrance is located on the axis and central bay. Roof and cladding modules can be moved to rearrange the plan and to add to as required by the owner. After the concrete slab was laid by a local builder the light aluminium and stainless steel frame was assembled on site by the owner and family in 5 hours 6 minutes and 11 seconds. London, New York, Munich & Zurich An innovative eco home challenges the lifestyle of single people. Designed as a prototype for student accommodation it was developed to create the first "M-ch" village building in Munich. The Micro-compact Home may be arranged as a single unit raised above the ground on a light aluminium frame and placed in a garden for private use. Its compact dimensions make it easily integrated with shrubs and trees. Micro-compact Home may be grouped in horizontal or vertical arrangements in compact clusters, or form larger villages for social or student accommodation or for short-stay business or leisure uses.