Hunts Green Barn represented a significant opportunity to expose the historic fabric of a Tithe Barn and restore the impressive spaces that had been neglected through recent interventions. The 16th Century Grade II listed barns had been partitioned into individual rooms through the 20th Century, betraying the grandeur and scale of the original spaces. This gave us justification at planning to provide a new massing to the rear of the site which might hold accommodation for a large family and allow the set of Barns to breath, no longer tied down by smaller programme over two storeys.

An aesthetic approach was chosen in the barns to reflect the industrial heritage of the building with raw black steel finishes adapted to function in various environments, from joinery cladding, to storage, fireplaces and window apertures. The concrete floor slab was also polished and taken through the existing barn to the new accommodation block, linking the two buildings together tectonically. Oak veneered boards wrap around the interior of the new extension, around walls, doors, and joinery to unify the form and conceal private rooms from the more public side of the site. 

The kitchen "block" was designed to hold several functional spaces in one tightly held unit to ensure that it would not impose on either the grand barn spaces or surrounding fabric. The skin of the object is held off the walls and ceilings to prevent harm to the original timber framing and clad in raw black steel that homogenizes its functions as kitchen cabinets, auxiliary spaces and stairs up to a plywood wrapped study. 

The environmental performance was at the forefront of the design, with innovative detailing and products used to create a new block that would perform up and above the existing barn which had limited opportunities for improvement. A ground source heat pump and other sustainable technologies were adopted to use the local landscape and provide practically all the heating needed for the house, all year round. Low-embodied Carbon materials were also chosen, including the cladding, in sustainably sourced Spruce. 

Despite how the historic barns and raw industrial materials furnish the interior with an archaic quality, cutting edge technology was integrated into the scheme to control the low levels of mood lighting, entertainment and environmental conditions. The light fittings were carefully chosen to compliment the black of the raw steel and disappear into the shade of the barn rafters. Where they do more noticeably come down to supply ambient lighting, they are placed along a datum that offers a more human scale to the areas below.