Case Studies

Coastal House, Devon

The practice 6a architects has reconfigured and extended a large early-twentieth century house in Devon. The house itself seemed initially unremarkable but the location is extraordinary; it stands close to the coast with extensive views of the sea and is...

Gloucester Services

‘A beacon of hope for hungry drivers looking for quality food’ was how an eminent restaurant critic described Gloucester Motorway Services, which recently opened between junctions 11a and 12 of the north and south bound sides of the M5 near...

Sunbeams Music Centre, Penrith, Cumbria

Sunbeams Music Centre is a unique building with a powerful story at its heart. It is dedicated to helping children with special needs, some of them desperately disabled, and improving their health and wellbeing through the power of music. Its...

Harmondsworth Barn, Harmondsworth, Middlesex

The Great Barn at Harmondsworth is the largest timber-framed medieval building in the country and one of the few surviving: a magnificent and remarkably preserved Grade I-listed building which is nearly a thousand years old. The oak structure and oak...

Wood Chip Barn

Most timber used in buildings today is machined, glued and fabricated, creating standard products from what was a very non-standard element, a tree. Yet trees have an inherent, natural strength and geometry; the branching forks of a standing tree show...

Stihl Treetop Walkway

A new high-level walkway at Westonbirt Arboretum gives visitors the chance to travel through the tree canopy at a height previously only experienced by birds and squirrels. This dramatic structure, the Stihl Treetop Walkway, winds through the Grade I-listed historic...

Mellor Primary School

Mellor is a small village not far from the Stockport / Manchester conurbation yet on the edge of open country and the Peak District National Park. Its primary school, looking out over woods and fields, has a ‘Forest School’ ethos,...

Wolfson Tree Management Centre, Westonbirt Arboretum

Two radical timber buildings at the National Arboretum in Gloucestershire demonstrate how timber from trees felled in the routine maintenance of the estate were processed on site into structure and cladding, and constructed by volunteers and trainee carpenters. Westonbirt Arboretum...

Stanbrook Abbey, Wass, Yorkshire

Stanbrook Abbey was described in the RIBA National Awards citation as 'A truly extraordinary piece of architecture… To execute such a beautiful organic form suggests divine intervention. It sits majestically within the woodland, rising out of the ground to form...

121, St. Clare's, Oxford

St. Clare’s is a private sixth-form college which provides courses in the International Baccalaureate. It was founded in 1953 and has 375 students, most of whom are boarders. The college is housed in a number of discreet ‘villas’ along the...

Maggie's at the Robert Parfett Building

When the late Maggie Keswick Jencks was diagnosed with cancer, she resolved to do something to help others who had the same diagnosis, to create a place of refuge for them where they would find practical and emotional support in...

Long Sutton Studio, Hampshire

Set at the end of a long rural track in Hampshire, Long Sutton Studio is a building which celebrates timber in its many forms: softwood and hardwood, laminated, planed and rough sawn. Timber is the predominant material, used for both...

Café, The Level, Brighton

A new café, designed by Knox Bhavan Architects, stands at the heart of The Level, a well-used and historic park on the main approach to Brighton. The park landscape has been restored and revitalised by Land Use Consultants (LUC) with...

The Helix, St Mary's Hospital, London

The Healthcare Innovation Exchange (HELIX) Centre is a new building with a radical concept; to explore how designers might work together with clinical practitioners in an acute general hospital to improve healthcare. A new idea, for instance, might push the...

House, Sussex

This elegant house stands on a ridge in Sussex looking out over the South Downs, whose distant hills are reflected in the undulating surfaces of the cross-laminated timber (CLT) roof.

The Observatory: The Study and The Workshop, various sites

In the summer of 2015 the idyllic shoreline of Lymington-Keyhaven Nature Reserve was home to a pair of lightweight timber cabins, known collectively as The Observatory.