Located in a rural village in northeast England, the massing and scale of this building has been driven by functional requirements as well as a desire to create a building that reflects its typology. Externally, it has the grand presence of a hall but also makes reference to the scale of agricultural farm buildings in the area and other surrounding dwellings.
The walls of the main hall are constructed from large vertical planks of marine plywood coated in black bitumen paint, while the roof is clad in standing seam zinc.
The architects’ goal was to create a building that has the quality of being handcrafted rather than the precision of a machine.