The Salt House

The Salt House, overlooking the Blackwater Estuary at St Lawrence Bay, Essex, rests alongside a bed of old oyster cottages.

These were once the homes of men and women who made their living from the fruits of the seawater coursing beneath their windows.

Until its owners come to live here permanently, it is a holiday home and therefore a luxury, although not a particularly expensive one.

If you could imagine a cheaper, distilled version of this house being built in place of mean-windowed brick and breeze-block housebuilders' tat, we might yet be able to offer those with modest earnings a more than decent modern home.

Unlike its venerable neighbours, the nominally crystal shape of the Salt House offers as many bay window views of the estuary as architecturally possible.

"Window and balcony openings," says its Canadian-born architect, Alison Brooks, "travel freely across the timber-clad facades, expressing the movement of a building formed by sea winds."

Which is a lovely thought.

The origami-like geometry of the Salt House's roofs and walls fold and unfold through the interior, creating a surprising, beautifully lit flow of