Old Bearhurst

Project Info

This project consisted of stripping away the insensitive accretions to an old oast house that had been converted into a home, and adding a new low-lying extension to create a single building with differing characteristics.

The spaces within the new addition flow seamlessly together and link to the surrounding meadows and rolling fields.

The annex itself is entirely clad in a stable, durable, engineered timber boarding, orientated vertically, in contrast to the rough sawn horizontal ship-lapping timber cladding of the oast barn. In plan therms, the new annex is located over the foot pint of the removed outbuildings, in response to the planning policies governing this project. The series of conjoined volumes is intended to be read as a component of a cluster, which includes the original barn. The judges felt that the building was beautifully set into the landscape and praised the feeling of the new spaces.