Whitworth is an award-winning practice of Chartered Architects and Chartered Building Surveyors. We provide a bespoke and comprehensive service from inception through to completion, offering flexibility over our involvement to align with our clients’ needs.
Discover how this Grade II Listed brick barn was transformed into a stunning contemporary home while preserving its history. Featuring an open-plan living-kitchen space, a sleek glazed link to a new living room extension, and a carefully engineered cantilever staircase, the design blends modern style with original features.
This brick barn is a Grade 2 Listed curtilage structure, and as such, was treated as a listed building by the planning authority.
When Whitworth were appointed, the barn had been bought with planning approval for conversion.
The client was looking to make a number of changes to the consent, and make the barn their own. The brief therefore was to create a contemporary new home within the historic space, while retaining as many of the historic features as possible.
This has been achieved by creating a large open-plan living-kitchen space, and making the most of the existing divided spaces to minimise the amount of intervention required within the barn.
A modest extension to the single storey element of the barn was constructed to form a corridor to these smaller stable spaces. This allowed the original forms and features to be preserved.
At the rear, a new living room extension was added, connected to the barn by a sleek, minimal glazed link. This link and new opening, coupled with the large, full height, single pane sliding glass door to the rear, alongside the open plan main barn, significantly contribute to the modern feel of the building, whilst ensuring that the historic features and detailing can still be seen.
The carefully engineered cantilever staircase and the glazed slot under the eave line further add to this feeling demanded by the brief.
A separate garage outbuilding has been constructed to house a plant room and studio space.
The house is heated via underfloor heating powered by solar panels and heat pumps.
Alongside the contemporary additions to the property, the building has undergone extensive repair, including re-roofing, and areas of brick replacement and re-pointing using traditional materials.
The end result is a fantastic new family home which has converted a redundant barn into a truly unique space.
In 2023, Whitworth were approach by our client to sympathetically carry out the conversion of an existing 1980s garage, originally built to accommodate the previous owner’s Ferrari, to a new one-bedroom annexe accommodation.
Whitworth oversaw the restoration of the historic Martello Tower in Aldeburgh, the largest of its kind from the Napoleonic Wars.
Bridge Cottage, a Grade II Listed 16th-century home in the heart of Kersey, has been carefully extended to create a seamless link to a new studio space and a light-filled kitchen-dining area. The single-storey, double-gabled extension enhances the home’s connection to its beautiful gardens while respecting its historic character.