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Architects: Blee Halligan Architects
- Area: 450 m²
- Year: 2018
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Photographs:Sarah Blee Photography
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Lead Architects: Greg Blee, Joshua Doyle
Text description provided by the architects. Aldeburgh is the nearest town to our site, a beautiful place on the Suffolk Coast in the East of England, close to Snape Maltings. We were asked to transform a tired brick barn, which sits in five acres of mixed woodland. Our proposal was for the demolition of an existing 1970’s cottage annexe, replaced by a new building containing five en-suite bedrooms. The roof profile is a very unique undulating form that gives a dynamic shape to the duplex interiors of each room.
The entire building is wrapped in cedar shingles which gives the project a sculptural quality. Internally, the rooms have generous living, dressing and bathing spaces, with a bedroom accessed from a bespoke staircase. The upgraded 5th bedroom is more generous in scale, with a 6-metre high living space with carefully selected private views to the landscaped gardens and the Suffolk countryside.
A value-conscious project, it was built for £1200/ m2, achieved by utilizing a timber frame and an inverted structural slab which limited material costs and labor, and in doing so gifted the project with high sustainability credentials. The building won three RIBA awards in 2018 and was shortlisted for the Stephen Lawrence prize, for the best UK project with a construction cost below £1m.
