private housing,new barn

' …such a sensitive and well thought out scheme.' Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)

'…this is a good design and we would be more than happy to see it built, indeed it is the sort of dwelling encouraged by the new Planning Policy Statement published by the (government) this week.' Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment (CABE)

West Hatch lies in open countryside near Tisbury in West Wiltshire. We have applied for planning permission to convert a nineteenth century stone barn into a new dwelling. Our scheme seeks to build-on the partial remnants of stone walling which give the site a ruinous quality. The new built forms grow out of these existing structures and from its northerly, more ‘public’ aspect are barely visible intrusions. From the south the building reveals itself to address a dramatic view of countryside deemed an area of outstanding natural beauty.

The more prominent part of new accommodation is to the west and is perched between existing stonework and a new piece of walling is constructed out of a mix of re-used (found) stones and hay-bails. Lead cladding is flashed across junctions between the new and old walls and cut to follow the eroded line of the existing walls. Profiled metal roof panels which refer to local farm building vernacular are placed to the pitch of the existing walls and held away vertically by glass slots, and similarly are slid-across the existing gable end. This project explores subtleties of material and spatial interplay, through the tantric relationship of roof to wall and wrapping of new wall surfaces over old. We are also interested in an idea of the ‘as-found’, to retain the ruinous aura of the site and as a poetic interpretation of the building and landscape