House for a Violinist, Bradford on Avon

2024 RIBA South West & Wessex Award

House for a Violinist, Bradford on Avon
Klas Hyllén Architecture for Private Client
Contract value: Confidential
GIA: 178m²

A gap in a terrace of grade II listed 18th century weavers’ cottages in Bradford-on-Avon has sparked the creation of a wonderfully inventive home where modernity meets tradition in a cascade of spaces over five levels. Two adjacent three-storey houses had previously been combined, using the gap as a courtyard garden. The client, a professional violinist, bought them and commissioned the architects to remodel them into a single dwelling with space where he could play without his bow hitting the low ceilings.

A bold new intervention fills the gap, fitting in quietly with the terrace while having its own distinct character. The journey through the house is inventive and unpredictable. A dramatic new staircase made of blackened steel has been inserted to link the different levels, pulled slightly away from the walls to allow light down and expressing the height of the building.

The terrace follows the contours of a steep slope, so there is a two-storey level difference between the front and back. There are pedestrian paths on both sides, but no vehicular access and their main entrances are on the lower side, with south facing gardens opposite on the other side of the public path. The gap is thought to be the result of a fire that burnt down one of the houses in the 1890s. The houses are listed as much for their group value as for their individual qualities, and the place has a special character due to the lack of cars and spectacular views over the town centre and to the hills beyond.

The footprint of each cottage is only 20 square metres and the historical walls could not be significantly altered, so the plan form of the existing rooms has been retained. From the front door you enter in the gap, now a dining room with views through to a living room and kitchen beyond. Beneath the stairs is a cave-like niche, used as a study. Up the stairway is another living room, open to the roof, with tall patio doors out on to a small terrace overlooking the town. Another flight leads from there to the music room, which leads in turn to a master bedroom.

Outside, the only apparent new intervention is an ashlar stone and slate roofed volume in the gap, a very contextual response. Through clever sleight of hand it looks single storey, and is set slightly lower than the adjacent houses, but is in fact tall enough for the stair to reach the second floor. The patio doors are twice the height of typical sash windows in the terrace but they do not look out of place and the scale is pleasingly uncanny.

This is a brave design for a listed building and it is quite an achievement to create such a varied and exciting sequence of spaces in such a small volume.

See the rest of the RIBA South West & Wessex winners here. And all the RIBA Regional Awards here.

To see the whole RIBA Awards process visit architecture.com.

RIBA Regional Awards 2024 sponsored by EH Smith and Autodesk