Our client’s brief was to provide
a self-contained residential annex with large living space, kitchen with views
to the surrounding fields and a building that follows the form of traditional
oak framed barns.
The new building meets those
objectives. The large family space is a
world in itself – being in it our clients describe as being always on
holiday. Large windows to the south and
north and high windows to the east and west give extraordinary variations of
natural light during the course of the day.
The specific building type is the
green oak barn, examples of which are still standing and sound after 800 years. This design evolves the type by tectonic
treatment of the interconnecting spaces, the use of purlin arch brace arcades to
give the roof structure a fugal rhythm and by the outshot mezzanines which allude
to an aisled barn structure and create a spatial dialogue within the main
space.
The construction is largely of timber
– green (by which is meant freshly felled and sawn) oak and softwood
weatherboards together with natural clay products with a very long life span
and reusability on eventual demolition; it has very high levels of insulation
and windows with argon filled double glazing and low emissivity glass. Heating currently is by condensing boil
boiler but the building is designed to be heated by ground source heat pump
using the adjacent 300 metre pond as heat source.
The materials used internally are
oak, white plaster and stone floor flags resembling purbeck and externally, black
weatherboard and black pantiles. The materials have been chosen for their own
intrinsic beauty, to sit comfortably in the open Suffolk landscape and to relate to the
sixteenth century oak framed house and converted stable wing. Landscaping the site is shortly to commence.