Sunningdale begins with the ground. Walk through the village and you notice it almost immediately — the sandy soil, the Scots pine filtering the light above the roofline, the silver birch and heather that remind you this is heathland, not river valley. The village grew from a scattering of cottages for workers on the great estates at the southern edge of Windsor Forest, and that origin still shapes its character: large houses set back behind mature planting, private lanes disappearing into woodland, a sense that each plot has been carved thoughtfully from the landscape rather than imposed upon it. Holy Trinity Church, rebuilt in brick and Bath stone in 1887, anchors the old village centre, but it is the relationship between buildings and trees, between domestic scale and open heath, that gives Sunningdale its particular quality. As an architect, I find that quality worth protecting — and worth building upon.
Award-winning Architects in Sunningdale
Sustainable Architecture for Sunningdale
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we now work with clients across the country from our studio in Oxford. We are RIBA chartered and ARB registered, and our work spans Sustainable Design, heritage-sensitive Renovations, and some of the most demanding environmental standards in residential architecture. Our Passivhaus project The Deerings in Hertfordshire won a RIBA East Award in 2018, and that same year I was a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the Building Design Awards. We have been featured in Dezeen, The Modern House Journal and Grand Designs Magazine, and in 2025 I was invited to judge the British Homes Awards. My membership of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and accreditation with The Green Register reflect a practice built on the belief that the poetic and the practical belong together — that a building can be beautiful, comfortable and extraordinarily efficient all at once.
Designing for Homes in Sunningdale
The generous plots that characterise much of Sunningdale create real opportunities for New Build Design. Many of the larger houses date from the Edwardian and inter-war periods, and where an existing building has reached the end of its useful life, a replacement dwelling designed to PassivHaus Design standards can deliver something transformative — a home with exceptional thermal comfort, outstanding air quality and energy consumption so low it changes what the house costs to live in. We design new homes that sit naturally within their settings, responding to the pine canopy, the heathland light and the generous spaces between buildings that give this village its character. Planning in Sunningdale is managed by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, and the adopted Neighbourhood Plan for Ascot, Sunninghill and Sunningdale sets clear expectations for design quality that we welcome.
Extension Design in Sunningdale often means working with substantial houses that already have presence. The question is not simply how to add space but how to improve the way a home connects to its garden and its landscape — how light enters, how rooms flow, how the boundary between inside and outside becomes less abrupt. Even within the conservation area that covers much of the old village, a well-considered extension that respects the proportions and materials of its context can be genuinely transformative. Sustainable Design is central to how we approach every extension, ensuring that new fabric performs to the highest standards rather than simply adding volume.
For homeowners in Sunningdale living in the inter-war and mid-century houses that line many of the village's leafy roads, EnerPHit offers a rigorous route to dramatically better performance. These are often solid-walled buildings with single glazing and little or no insulation — comfortable in summer, expensive and draughty in winter. By improving airtightness, adding carefully detailed insulation, upgrading windows and introducing mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, we can transform how these homes feel and perform without altering their external character. It is Renovations at their most intelligent — working with what exists rather than against it.
Sunningdale sits within the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area buffer zone, which places particular requirements on new residential development. It also sits within the Green Belt. These are not obstacles — they are frameworks that, when understood properly, can produce better architecture. Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework provides a route to building a truly exceptional home in the countryside beyond the village, where the heathland opens out toward Chobham Common and the Surrey border. It demands architecture of genuine quality — design that enhances its setting rather than simply occupying it — and it is a standard our environmental credentials and design ambition equip us to meet.
Sunningdale is a village shaped by its landscape — the heath, the pines, the generous relationship between building and ground. If you are considering a new home, an extension, a retrofit or a renovation in Sunningdale, we'd like to talk through what might work here.