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Architects: Stonewood Design
- Year: 2015
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Photographs:Craig Auckland
Text description provided by the architects. The restoration of the Grade II Listed Home Farm Barn, West Littleton and the intervention of a Pod Gallery into the Barn.Our client wished to restore Home Farm Barn to its full glory and remove past interventions within it, which served to domesticate what is a bold historic structure.
They also wanted to sensitively and creatively manage the interface between the House and the Barn. Currently this line is blurred, and the two do not relate to each other successfully.
There is an opportunity to view the interior of the Barn from the House, and celebrate the tough, axial sense of space within the Barn.
Our client required a space within the Barn, which was warm, dry, light and airtight, and which can be used to house a personal collection of watercolour paintings.
In response to our Client’s brief requirements we have created an intervention in the Barn which is conceived as a Pod Gallery.
The Pod Gallery is a lightweight timber structure, which in its concept is a “reversible” intervention - ie. it “sits lightly” within the Barn.
The Pod Gallery only touches the Barn where it sits on the existing raised Barn !oor, directly above the cellar below. It cantilevers over this !oor, giving the impression of !oating, The Walls and Roof of the Pod Gallery sit away from the Barn. The roof undulates around the existing Barn trusses, creating a cast of the negative space.
The existing domestic doors and windows in the Barn are removed and the openings made good. All arrow-slit window openings are reinstated. Sealed, glazed openings are introduced alongside the paintings - the two being viewed together from the warmth of the Barn.
Full height glazing is provided to the gable of the Pod Gallery which faces the Barn. In this way, the full splendor of the Barn is revealed from the comfort of the Pod Gallery.
The soft warm qualities of the timber Pod Gallery contrast with the hard cold structure of the stone Barn.
“The present life of man upon earth... is like to the swift !ight of a sparrow through the house wherein you sit at supper in winter... while the "re blazes... but the wintry storms... are raging abroad. The sparrow...whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest... So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.”
Bede's Ecclesiastical History (Inspiration for the project).
