The project is a collecFon of new agricultural style buildings at the threshold between the formal garden of the main house and meadow beyond in a small Northamptonshire village. The brief asked for the demoliFon of an exisFng garage, a garden store and the remains of an old piggery. In their place our clients asked for a studio’ building with catering faciliFes and a bathroom, where our clients might go away for the weekend, a garden storage building with room for an office at one end, a carport and a greenhouse.
Taking the original piggery walls as a cue, we created a series of new walls of various heights and orientaFons in the local coursed limestone from which the main house is constructed and that is so prevalent in Warmington and other Northamptonshire villages. The new buildings emerge from, sail over or hang off these walls. Using a limited paleRe of unadorned agricultural materials in a variety of different ways, sawn larch Fmber, (verFcal random width cladding, oversized shingles and framing to the carport planted roof) corrugated aluminium and Cor10 steel, we have tried to create a relaxed informality between the buildings as if they have accreted themselves into the site and onto the walls over a period of Fme as needs required.
Internally in the studio we have repeated the random width verFcal cladding on the outside, though this Fme it is planed and treated with a lye and a wax finish to maintain its’ colour. It is buR jointed to allow the Fmber to move and natural cracks and undulaFons to appear across the boards.