Located within a working Somerset farmyard, the new building provides an architecture archive for a private collector.
An existing derelict barn was partly dismantled, and the remaining front and gable elevations carefully repaired.
A new concrete foundation, slab and rear retaining wall were built within the walls and support two independent Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) framed structures. The CLT has an exaggerated thickness such that no insulation or other elements are needed to create the stable environment that the archive requires.
The old walls are discretely tied back to the timber frames for stability, and a simple arrangement of steel purlins rests on the timber structures, and spans the gap between them, to support a corrugated roof sheet.
One of the new buildings provides drawing archive and display space and the other provides office space, with both opening onto a sunlit courtyard in the woodlands at the rear.
