Connection Between House and Garden
We don’t only design new buildings. We often work on schemes to extend and enhance much loved family homes with new spaces.
This scheme for a garden room helped to improve the connection between the main house on a country estate in the Test Valley and it’s beautiful English Country Garden. Classical proportions and details were meticulously married with glazing styling to harmonise with the existing Edwardian house.
Revisiting a Country House in Berkshire
Being asked back to work on a project we designed originally is always very nice, like catching up with an old friend you haven’t seen in a long while.
If nothing else it is reassuring when one revisits to see again that the ideas we had in the studio translated well into the finished building and to observe how it has become the treasured house and home we always hoped it would be.
We’ve recently been invited back to a country house we designed in Berkshire over a decade ago to extend it sympathetically and ensure it evolves to suit the changing needs of the family who have owned it since new. We look forward to sharing the progress with you as things develop.
The Restoration of Grade II Listed Buildings
It is always nice to have a project you can walk to from the office, in this case a scheme for eleven new homes to enable the restoration of a set of Grade II Listed buildings within a Conservation Area as five apartments.
After careful negotiation and working collaboratively with the Local Planning Authority, to overcome planning and conservation officers initial concerns, over a period of sixteen months, we were granted consent by the Planning Committee for a scheme which takes on board and addresses any concerns officers had, provides much needed new housing and secures the future of at risk heritage buildings.
Transforming Sites with Existing Buildings
It is not unusual that a client will approach us with a site which already has a building on it, sometimes we can work with the existing buildings, sometimes there are too many issues with the existing building to make this feasible and sometimes it is just in the wrong place. By examining all the options we can deliver a design which fully exploits the opportunities a site presents to provide the optimal solution.
These before and after photos show an example of this where a distinctly poor example of a 1960s/70s house was replaced by this Georgian inspired design in the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The more historic wing at the front was retained and carefully repaired to act as an annexe.
Designing a Courtyard for a Country Estate in Berkshire
“A bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture… the term architecture applies only to buildings designed with a view to aesthetic appeal.” Nikolaus Pevsner in the introduction to ‘An Outline of European Architecture’, 1943.
Not every project we get asked to design is grand and large, we often work on smaller projects such as this courtyard building on a country estate in Berkshire.
However, even the humblest buildings we work on still get the same level of care and thoughtfulness of design and attention to detail as the grandest. Careful material choices here of Keymer Tiles handmade clay roof tiles with bonnet hips, oak framing and cladding, and conservation rooflights, coupled with considered design moves including a cupola for ventilation and extra wide carport bays for ease of use elevate this building to something which can hold its own next to a far grander main building.
Repairing and Maintaining a Grade II* Listed Queen Anne Residence
We’re pleased to have recently gained Listed Building Consent for a scheme of repair and maintenance for this Grade II* Listed Queen Anne gentleman’s residence in the North Wessex Downs. Featured in Country Life Magazine, the building dates back to the early 1700s and we are looking forward to things progressing with this interesting project.