Principal rooms are in floating sycamore-clad ‘boxes’ set across two levels below the new roof
RIBA National Award winner 2021
RIBA South West & Wessex Award winner 2021
TYPE Studio for private client
Contract value: undisclosed
GIA: 199m2
Within a typology of barn conversions, this place is approaching work-of-art status. It tells a wonderful story of family ambition with father, son and partner working hard with vision and restraint. This rediscovered barn was no ordinary barn, which is clear to see in the quality of its masonry, its scale, its proportion, and its immediate rural landscape setting. It is complete with its subtle but powerfully anchoring crescent shaped enclosure.
The barn was a place for prize cattle, and now faultless execution has transformed this previously abandoned building into something worthy of being a scheduled monument. It was found by chance, as a ruin on a plot of land, with no permission for re-use. Since then, it has truly been rescued and should be recognised as a building of high architectural and historical significance.
As a piece of contemporary design, everything that has been added brings continuity to its past and present and sets up a wonderful future of further interpretation and use: from the structural steel shoes that stabilise the original half-rounded columns, to the new roof, engineered to allow for an additional mezzanine if needed. The jury could not fault in any of the decisions, from the lightest of touches in the treatment of the landscape to the hand-forged balustrades. A gem in the rough.
See the rest of the South West winners here
And all the RIBA Regional Awards here
See other RIBA National Awards 2021 winners, House, here