A Butterfly plan, also known as a Double Suntrap plan, is a type of architectural plan in which two or more wings of a house are constructed at an angle to the core, usually at approximately 45 degrees to the wall of the core building.[1] It was used primarily in late Victorian architecture and during the early Arts and Crafts movement.
History
Westwood House, Worcestershire, was a 17-century precursor.[2] After the original, rectangular house was begun c. 1612, four diagonal wings were added at some time later in the same century.[3]
Victorian interest in the plan originated in the 1891 remodelling of Chesters, Northumberland, by Norman Shaw.[2] To the original, square house of 1771 he added five wings; three of these were diagonal, creating suntrap flanks for the south and west fronts.[4]
The principle of the butterfly plan was also re-adapted within an overall rectangular overall form, as for instance in Kallio Library in Helsinki, Finland, by architect Karl Hård af Segerstad, completed in 1902.
^Brooks, Alan; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2007). The Buildings of England: Worcestershire. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 653–56. ISBN978-0-300-11298-6.
