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Holly Barn
Holly Barn
United Kingdom
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Holly Barn
United Kingdom
Type
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2006
Photos
Holly Barn is a new five bedroom house, built on the site of a dilapidated barn on the Norfolk Broads. The new barn measures 27 x 6 metres, and is similar in size and volume to the ‘old’ barn, except that the new structure accommodates two storeys.
The building has been detailed with a simple and smooth envelope; to give a clear clean profile to the skyline. The hidden gutter allows the curved eaves to melt into the roof. The natural timber boarding on the roof, and walls, is intended to resonate with the traditional construction of local windmills, boat houses, and boat construction of The Broads.
The internal planning of the house has been carefully designed to give total mobility to the wheelchair bound client. Wide passages, doorways, and a platform lift gives accessibility to both floors. There are many curved walls and corners, which not only give delight, but importantly make wheeled mobility much easier. Handrails and ‘specialist furniture’, have been integrated, and detailed into their respective background, wherever possible.
The ground floor contains the family areas of the house: four bedrooms, a playroom and two bathrooms. The bedrooms have been designed as small ‘monastic’ cells, each identified by a different pastel coloured wardrobe. The bedroom doors remain in the open position (during the day), and have been carefully detailed to disappear into ‘pockets’ within the wall so that the door face is flush with the plaster surface. This means the room and corridor become one space during the day.
The bedrooms are entered from a south facing corridor, with a rippled (on plan) wall. The undulations of the walls offer many benefits, they form reveals to hold the French doors when open, they contain flowing space allowing people to pass comfortably both along the route and out into the landscape and most importantly they allow easy wheelchair movement. The strong natural sunlight reflects the pastel colours of the wardrobes onto the rippled wall.
On the north elevation the windows are generally small making small puncture holes in the wall on this level. In this way solar energy and light is harnessed while heat loss is minimised quite naturally through form and orientation.
In contrast to the ground floor, the first floor is a very open, large, generous volume. It has a tall curved ceiling which follows the pitch of the roof, and long panoramic windows on both side walls. The top storey is conceived as a single space. Internally a clean barn like volume has been created, with the powerful all enclosing smooth curved ceiling expressed, enjoyed, and seen running from one end to the other.
The dividing walls on the first floor stop at eaves height and above is glass (to give acoustic separation) so that the volume and visual experience of the roof is not interrupted. The low eaves are reminiscent of Arts & Crafts houses. A beautiful curved eaves terminates the smooth ‘shell like’ plastered ceiling. Large sliding windows along the south side, give uninterrupted views of the horizontal Broads landscape.
An oak floor runs along the main circulation route on the south side of the first floor. Walking along this route, feels not unlike strolling along the promenade deck on a ship. The bathroom pod sits towards the east end of the barn like an object in this great space. Beyond it, with views to three sides and the rising sun to the east, is the main bedroom.
Timber is the predominant external material, with walls clad in alternating strips of wide, and narrow larch shiplapped boarding. Fully glazed east, and west gables are screened by deep louvred iroko slatted panels. Sliding windows and doors are manufactured in Iroko timber. The curved ridge of the roof is covered with a Rheinzink standing seam cladding, its colour tones very closely with the weathered timber boarding.
Holly Barn has won the prestigious RIBA Manser Medal (House of the Year) and numerous other awards.
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