We were commissioned to design a new-build house to replace some agricultural structures within a farm estate in Shropshire. The brief was to create a generous but easy to manage dwelling for a couple to occupy as they reach old age, allowing them to stay on their land but to pass on the main house to their children.

Within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the project successfully received planning permission despite its location outside the village envelope, due to the careful design and consideration of the landscape. Its informal and idiosyncratic range of pitched and barrel-vaulted roof profiles, draws on the form of the barns it replaces. The house sits along the hedge line with no garden, borrowing the field landscape as its open space, allowing sheep to graze right up to the windows.

The project completed in early 2018, you can view some construction images here and completed images will be published soon.

Copper roofing will patinate over time to a dark brown and finally green, and we learnt from how traditional Finnish buildings detail their copper roofing to create elegant gutters and junctions.

Cedar cladding from just over the border in Wales, rough sawn and stained black, wraps the building, ending at a concrete plinth which forms a solid base where the building meets the grass.

Internally, the curved glulam timber beams are exposed, to give rhythm and scale to the living spaces.