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Architects: 31/44 Architects
- Area: 440 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Nick Dearden
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Manufacturers: Carl Hansen, Case Furniture, GANT Lights, John Lewis, Living Space & Partners, Living Wood, Minoli, Reeve Wood
Text description provided by the architects. Norfolk Barn is the conversion of a disused agricultural barn into a generous four-bedroom family home, characterized by a calm restrained exterior and dramatic interior volumes, which create domestic spaces on two floors within the expansive 450m2 footprint of the original barn. The house celebrates its agricultural heritage, wearing its domestic conversion lightly. Built of quotidian corrugated metal walls and roof and punctured with roof lights, the addition of a high-level veil of vertical larch louvers contributes a finesse appropriate for a dwelling.
Externally the house presents a quiet façade to adjacent houses and the listed parish church, which shares a boundary with the site. On the principal façade, there is no discernible entrance; the elevation is instead defined by a metal-clad drum redolent of a silo, which cloaks a spiral stair linking the house’s two floors. A recessed entrance is concealed in the shadows. The simple vertical pattern of metal and timber louvers wraps the whole building, breaking on the rear elevation to reveal double-height curtain walling permitting uninterrupted views of the landscape. The house and garden are inspired by the serene atmosphere of the client’s holidays. Central to the design is a 15m indoor swimming pool which runs the length of the house and is accessed via the main social spaces. Recreation, relaxation, and play are at the heart of this home.
Internally, the house owner was keen to preserve the raw and cavernous character of the original barn and avoid overtly domestic finishes. The interior is defined by pure architectural structures inspired by the direct and rudimentary language of agricultural plants and buildings. These structures frame two principal double-height spaces: the living, kitchen, and dining spaces and the indoor swimming pool and spa area. An in-situ concrete frame with articulated timber components places a dramatic new master suite aloft the pool. An adjacent timber-framed structure clad in veneered plywood runs the width of the barn, creating more intimately scaled spaces including, on the upper level the boys’ bedrooms and a guest bedroom with a private enclosed terrace and, on the ground floor level a cozy den/TV room with a lowered ceiling.
In its form and materials, the architecture preserves the memory of the building as a functioning agricultural space, while accommodating new domestic uses with an additional level of comfort and refinement. The scale of the interior fittings and materials have been carefully tuned by the client to relate to the large spaces while accommodating domestic life.
