Trees

Trees, a house designed and built in 1967-8 by Gordon Ryder (1919-2000) of the architectural firm Ryder and Yates, was created as a family home for Ryder himself and his family.

The house is constructed of load-bearing buff brick with grey-green panels (which replaced the original white panels), incorporating a concealed steel structure that supports the living room ceiling. It is positioned along the north boundary of the site, presenting its main aspect towards the garden to the south and east. The building forms a long, narrow two-storey rectangle with distinctive triangular fin-like protrusions at the centre of both the long north and south elevations, within which the entrances from the drive and garden are located. The internal room arrangement deliberately separates the parents' and children's areas.

The east elevation is substantially glazed with grey-green panels, the window shape expressing the paraboloid ceiling within the living room. The north and south elevations feature horizontal bands of windows with limited fenestration, a design choice intended to restrict noise pollution from the nearby airport. Above each triangular fin are small transverse monopitch roofs with side panels, echoing the form of the fins. Band windows flank the triangular fins at ground floor level, with additional windows positioned above the entrances. The south façade incorporates a porthole window from the gallery, set into the extended panel, and a door from the living room with a raised mound of earth beneath it. The west façade is blank aside from a large garage door. Most windows and doors have been replaced with uPVC, with the exception of the porthole and the large living room window.

Internally, the ground floor is divided by a cranked wall forming the side of the gallery above. The entrance leads via short steps to a large double-height living space at the east end of the house, positioned at a higher level than the remainder of the ground floor. From this space, steps descend to the dining room, whilst a narrow stair provides access to the bedroom corridor (the only access to the first floor) via a small bridge over the entrance hall to the gallery. Between the gallery and guest bedroom sits a narrow study projecting into the garden above the south entrance. The western half of the ground floor contains a playroom, four children's bedrooms, a bathroom, a boiler room, and the garage. Above this section are the large master bedroom and guest room, each with en-suite bathrooms. The master bedroom opens onto a large, high-walled terrace positioned above the garage.

Interior walls are predominantly white painted render or brick, except for a curved wall in the dining room which is covered with yellow hessian, and areas of fair-faced brick and cork in the ground floor bedroom area. Joinery is painted white except for fitted cupboards in natural timber. Ceilings and timber are carefully detailed to emphasise the effect of shadows. The principal space is the large double-height living room and gallery with its extensive end window, dominated by a dramatic ceiling comprising two paraboloid sections, one concave and one convex. Views through the interconnecting hall, stair, gallery, entrance, living and dining areas create architectural interest. During the 1970s, a timber screen with door was installed to partition the dining area in response to the oil crisis. The kitchen and laundry have subsequently been refitted, and part of the dividing wall with its sliding partition has been removed.

Upstairs, the master bedroom ceiling is a single concave paraboloid, shallower than that of the living room, with original fitted stencilled natural timber cupboards and a refitted en-suite bathroom. A large window along the west wall provides access onto the walled terrace garden. Other rooms are low-ceilinged and simpler in design. The dining room provides access to the garden.

The architectural firm Ryder and Yates was an important regional practice in the North-East whose work remains surprisingly under-published. They emerged as one of the few entirely regional practices whose work was consistently comparable in quality and innovation to firms based in the London area. The practice was committed to modernist principles: Peter Yates had previously worked with Le Corbusier, the two partners had met whilst working for Lubetkin at Peterlee, and this influence strongly informed their work. Ryder and Yates established their practice in Newcastle in 1953, and their early output included seven private houses, of which Trees is the last, most ambitious and most complete, all sharing rectilinear plans. At the time of Trees' construction, Ryder and Yates had recently completed Norgas House (1964) and the Grade II* designated Gas Council Engineering Research Station (1967), both at Killingworth and both iconic Corbusian buildings for which they were best known.