August 13, 2026 / By rachel
Zenith takes its place in our series on 13 August, as the Perseid meteor shower reaches its annual peak. As ‘zenith’ describes both the point in the sky directly overhead and the highest point or peak, the timing feels particularly fitting for a house set high on a steep Cheltenham hillside.
The challenge of building on a steep site became central to the design, although the client’s reason for choosing RRA began several years earlier with a very different building: the Evesham Micros headquarters in Worcestershire.
For Week 23 of our #40Projects40Weeks series, we are looking back at one of RRA’s most striking contemporary homes, where the influence of Evesham Micros, the challenges of a steep hillside and Mark Powles’ passion for creating a memorable arrival all came together.
Our client had seen and admired the headquarters RRA designed for Evesham Micros, the fast-growing computer manufacturer whose new office and production building captured the confidence of the late 1990s technology boom. He liked the project enough to remember the practice behind it and later chose RRA to design his own new home in Battledown.
There was another neat connection. One of the memorable features at Evesham Micros was the approach across a bridge over a reflective pool, which gave the headquarters a suitably confident entrance. When we revisited the story for Week 2 of this series, that bridge was still one of the details that made the building immediately recognisable.
At Zenith, the setting and brief were completely different, but the opportunity to make arrival part of the architecture was every bit as strong.
Why Mark likes a bridge
RRA Managing Director Mark Powles has always been passionate about the way people approach and enter a building. The journey to the front door sets expectations for everything that follows and, where a site offers the opportunity, a bridge can introduce a moment of architectural theatre before anyone has stepped inside.
At Zenith, however, the bridge was far more than a dramatic flourish. The existing house occupied a sharply contoured site on the Battledown hillside and its replacement needed to negotiate a considerable change in level. By spanning an external courtyard between the retained ground and the new house, the bridge created a level route to the entrance while allowing the building to stand away from the bank.
That separation brought natural light into the uphill side of the plan, kept damp earth away from the structure and removed the need for a full tanking system. It is the sort of design move Mark particularly enjoys: one idea solving several practical problems while also making the experience of the building considerably more interesting.
A house that reveals itself
The original brief called for a bold contemporary home that would ‘cascade’ down the hill, make the most of the long views and, in the clients’ own words, feel like “a warm party house” for entertaining family and friends.
From the upper approach, Zenith presents a relatively low and controlled frontage, with its flat roofs and crisp white geometry sitting behind mature planting. The full scale of the house becomes apparent only as the site falls away, revealing three storeys of glazing and long views across Cheltenham.
Crossing the entrance bridge begins that gradual reveal. Inside, the route opens into generous gallery-style spaces, with a floating glass staircase, double-height volumes and a suspended fireplace at the centre of the plan. The house is boldly modern, but the drama is balanced by a practical arrangement of family spaces, six bedroom suites and direct connections to the terraces, garden and outdoor pool.
The fuller architectural story, including how RRA secured planning permission for a substantial 6,000 sq ft replacement dwelling on the sloping site, can be found on the Zenith project page.
Still shining more than a decade later
Zenith was completed in 2015 and its clean structure, generous glazing and carefully staged arrival still give the house a confident presence more than a decade later. It remains an excellent example of how a difficult site can generate the strongest part of a design, particularly when practical site planning and a touch of theatre are allowed to work together.
The Perseids may flash across the sky for only a moment, but good architecture has a rather longer job to do, and Zenith still looks bright, distinctive and entirely at home on its Cheltenham hillside.
This project is part of our #40Projects40Weeks series, celebrating 40 years of RRA Architects through some of the projects, people and stories that have shaped the practice. If you have missed any of the previous posts, you can catch up on our News page.
About RRA Architects
Currently celebrating its 40th year, RRA Architects is an award-winning architectural practice established in 1986, supporting clients across residential, commercial, retail, development, heritage, education, community and conservation projects.
We work nationally, but are mostly focused across Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, the Cotswolds, Bristol and Avon, the West Midlands, the South West, Monmouthshire and South Wales, helping clients create thoughtful, practical and well-designed buildings.