Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño

Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Exterior PhotographyFriends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Interior Photography, BathroomFriends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Interior Photography, Dining room, WoodFriends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Exterior Photography, FacadeFriends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - More Images+ 21

Bentworth, United Kingdom
  • Area Area of this architecture project Area:  350
  • Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2019
  • Manufacturers Brands with products used in this architecture project
    Manufacturers:  Accoya, AutoDesk, GIRA, panoramah!®, BANDALUX, Fixtures, MORTEX, mosaics del sur, wood burning fireplace
  • Lead Architect: Alberto Marcos
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Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Exterior Photography, Facade

Text description provided by the architects. Set in beautiful Hampshire, the brief for this project was to design a cottage where friends and family could spend long periods of time just next door to the prime residence within the existing Farm.

Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Exterior Photography
Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Image 24 of 26
Ground Floor Plan
Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Exterior Photography, Garden

With the image in mind of the double-pitched black timber cladded barns and the existing farm´s stable yard building, we engaged in a reinterpretation of the design.  Of vital concern was to set the architecture within the surrounding landscape in a natural manner. A similar formal and colour approach to the existing Farm was used for the design of the new house, but reinterpreted in a thoroughly contemporary way, from structure to finishes and importantly, a very high level of energy efficiency.

Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Interior Photography, Wood

A prefab and industrialised construction method, CLT (contra-laminated timber panels), was used for the construction. To power it, a PV array and a ground source heat pump, and a borehole with a treatment plant to supply water.  A house designed to sit silently on the landscape.

Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Interior Photography, Dining room, Wood
Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Image 22 of 26
Detail Section
Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Interior Photography, Stairs, Wood

Built with a double skin, the exterior comprises a permeable black stained accoyatimber batten screen, camouflaging the house as though an agricultural building, with roof and façades in the same plane, in a simple and clear gesture. The roof is double pitched through the building’s whole length, except for the living area where a new half bay was added, thus opening the house to the southern fields.

Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Interior Photography, Stairs, Wood

The interior of the house is conceived as the absolute opposite to the dark exterior: all light, combining limestone and lime based mineral micro-mortar (mortex) floors with chestnut panelled or mortex walls. 

Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Interior Photography, Wood

The rooms are totally integrated with the landscape, with sliding doors that hide within the exterior walls when open, leading to small terraces that act like small private islands anchored within the outdoor world.

Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Interior Photography, Bathroom
Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Image 26 of 26
Elevations
Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Interior Photography, Bathroom

The house has been conceived as having two levels. The first one, up to 2.20m, the human level reachable by hand, making use of earthy textures to be experienced through touch, like mortex or chestnut, and which defines the height of doors and windows. The next layer, the layer of  air with the ceilings that bathe the house in natural light with their rooflights and pitches.

Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Interior Photography, Wood, Door

The two master bedrooms look towards East and West at the two ends of the house. A lookout with a cantilevered marble desktop completes one of the sides and a meditation space does the same for the other.

The two other bedrooms, designed for children, play with the full height of the spaces.  In one of them a tree house branches up, converting into two sleeping platforms above two tables.

Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Exterior Photography

Every bathroom is different, and include baths and showers that are naturally lit by skylights. Each one bears a different colour using shades of mineral paints to match the encaustic tiles’ main colours. The mirrors in the master bathrooms comprise two circles intersecting with black slim metal edging, a small hommageto Scarpa.  

A contemporary barn set within a landscape of ploughed fields and woods. Black over green.

Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño - Exterior Photography, Facade

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Cite: "Friends Lab House / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño" [Casa Friends Lab / AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño] 03 May 2023. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/937105/friends-lab-house-amps-arquitectura-and-diseno> ISSN 0719-8884

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