nimtim architects‘ Aldeburgh accessible home, completed in July 2025, reframes what inclusive design means in a domestic setting, stripping a typical Suffolk bungalow back to its bones and rebuilding it around continuous, threshold-free living for clients with changing mobility needs.
The commission began after the clients, one of whom has multiple sclerosis, spent two years searching for a property that could genuinely support long-term accessibility. A north London basement flat had proved impossible to adapt. The coastal town of Aldeburgh offered the right starting point: a bungalow with a large rear garden and enough footprint to work with, though not yet the home they required.
Rethinking the plan for the nimtim Aldeburgh accessible home
nimtim’s response was to strip the original layout of its small, outdated room divisions and reconfigure the entire ground floor as a single, open-plan circuit. Wide sliding pocket doors and generous circulation widths accommodate a wheelchair throughout. A ramp integrated into the front garden handles the entrance, avoiding any suggestion of a bolt-on accessibility measure. The approach, as Nimi Attanayake, director at nimtim architects, describes it, was to ‘look beyond conventional ideas of accessibility and instead consider how a home can support daily life over time.’
The main bedroom sits on the ground floor, positioned to overlook the principal entertaining space, with sliding pocket doors that allow it to open fully into the kitchen and living areas. Work surfaces and storage in the kitchen and pantry have been lowered throughout. Above, a double-height void is topped by a large skylight, with a mezzanine level above providing a workspace acoustically open to the ground floor. That upper level also accommodates a bedroom for a potential live-in carer, meaning the house can absorb a significant change in circumstances without physical reconfiguration. A further room opening off the main living spaces doubles as a guest bedroom with its own shower when closed; opposite sits a dedicated study.
The gross internal floor area of 151m² (182m² including external floor area) was delivered at a construction cost of £611,211 via a JCT Minor Works contract, with SD Structures as structural engineer and Craft Design Construction as external cladding subcontractor.
Materials chosen for durability and low maintenance
Client Simon was direct about the brief’s core demand: ‘Every decision was made with the idea that the house needs to last us up to 30 years with limited maintenance. We tasked nimtim to design it with the intention that we will never move again, so longevity and low maintenance became fundamental to how the house is made.’
That requirement shaped every material choice. The external envelope is clad in a deep rusty red Viroc, a cement-bonded board selected for its durability in Aldeburgh’s exposed coastal environment, with all doors and window frames colour-matched to it. Inside the bathrooms, a burnt orange microcrete carries the palette inward. The central living spaces shift to two contrasting matt clay plasters, supplied by Clayworks, alongside timber flooring. A continuous recessed picture rail runs through the house, allowing the clients’ art collection to move and reconfigure without fixings or repainting, a detail that speaks directly to both the low-maintenance brief and to client Julia’s view that art is ‘simply part of everyday living rather than something separate from it.’
Environmental performance and all-electric services
The home is entirely all-electric, with space heating and hot water delivered via an air-source heat pump supplied by Conga Environmental. High levels of insulation and triple glazing across the northern, eastern and western façades underpin the thermal envelope. The result is a heating and hot water load of 10.4 kWh/m²/yr, based on 1,459 kWh per year across a floor plate of 140m², alongside an annual water consumption of 42m³ per occupant. Rainwater harvesting is in place for garden irrigation, and a photovoltaic installation is planned.
The project was granted planning permission by East Suffolk Council, which also acted as approved building inspector. Work started on site in February 2023.
