A bespoke media wall for a contemporary waterside home on the Exe Estuary.

In the centre of Lympstone, a village of historic character on the western shore of the Exe Estuary, a new house was built on a site that offered little in the way of compromise. The conservation area demanded that the design respect its surroundings; the topography required engineering ambition to make the most of the land. The answer was a cantilevering first floor projecting over an enclosed courtyard, with a terraced garden cut into the landscape behind and the estuary stretching south beyond.

The building was conceived as both a feat of structural precision and a highly considered family home: environmentally efficient, with concealed solar panels and heat pump systems integrated discreetly into the fabric of the house. For the interior, the ambition was the same: nothing extraneous, nothing that would distract from the architecture or the views it had been built to frame.

Working to the Standard that the Building Set

Young & Norgate were commissioned to design, craft, and install the living room media wall while ensuring the joinery that would hold to the same standard of precision as the building around it.

In a home of this architectural clarity, the joinery could not be an afterthought. Every element needed to work within a disciplined interior language: supporting the architecture, concealing what needed to be concealed, and leaving the views to do what they were always intended to do.

Letting the Views Lead

The media wall was developed as an extension of the architectural logic rather than a separate layer. In a building defined by structural discipline and environmental care, the interior specification followed the same principles: a palette of dyed oak, Noir St. Laurent marble, leather panels, and bronzed brass resolved to sit quietly within an interior that had no interest in unnecessary complexity.

The result is a crisp, minimal interior built entirely from natural materials. Oak, marble, leather, and bronzed brass: each chosen for its tone and texture, each working together to create a surface that feels considered without feeling decorated.

Making the Complexity Disappear

The media wall reads as effortlessly simple. Getting it there was anything but. Over 40 linear metres of brass inlays were hand-finished with a bronze patina: a process that demands consistency across every run, with no margin for variation in a surface this visible and this spare. Leather panels sit within bronze shadow gap detailing, and Noir St. Laurent marble tops ground the piece with weight and depth.

Integrating the television and audio equipment seamlessly within that surface added a further layer of precision: technology that needed to disappear entirely into the joinery without compromising the clarity of the design.

"A precise exercise in making. Crafted from oak, marble, leather and bronzed brass, brought together by our highly skilled team: where the clarity of the design leaves no room for anything other than perfection."

Ross Norgate, Young & Norgate, Director

Fitted Without Interruption

Installing within a newly completed structure of this precision required careful sequencing and close coordination with the main contractor. Each component arrived resolved and was fitted progressively, maintaining the interior's coherence as the space came together.

The Result

The completed house is now home to its new owners: a building that balances structural ambition, environmental efficiency, and domestic warmth in equal measure. The media wall sits at the heart of the living space: a crisp, minimal composition in natural materials where the craftsmanship is present in every detail and visible in none of them.

A conservation area that demanded restraint, a structural brief that demanded boldness, and an interior that had to hold both together without drawing attention to itself.

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