Southfield Farm was once a tired farmhouse with a charming threshing barn and extensive land. Our clients approached Allan Joyce Architects with a brief to create a modern day farmstead style house with a super eco specification. With a grown up family, the accommodation needed to provide for the partners and friends of their children and to create a country escape for the whole family away from the city. As well as the extensive family spaces, it also had to provide for a large car collection and manageable outdoor relaxation areas.
Our design replaced the dilapidated farmhouse with a contemporary replacement property linking to the converted barn with a frameless glass orangery. The plan was orientated around a double courtyard that defines the extent of formal gardens with the living accommodation designed to open out into the external spaces.
Internally, the house has quirky features, such as a hidden revolving door that leads down a stone staircase to a ‘secret’ temperature controlled wine cellar. The main entrance hallway features oak parquet flooring with a welcoming open fire and double height space to accommodate the Christmas tree, come the festive period. The house is designed with the latest technology, including a gym, steam room and an indoor swimming pool, which is heated using solar power and a heat exchanger. State of the art intelligent lighting, sound systems and smart home technology are fitted throughout the house, allowing the mood of a room to be changed at the flick of a switch.
Outside, the courtyard living spaces feature a pizza oven, barbeque area, and covered seating area, with views through openings in the brick garden wall, across the surrounding landscape. Beyond the courtyards, we designed a naturalistic approach to the landscaping from the road to the house, with a winding drive, large lake and a timber sleeper ha-ha wall, to keep the cattle back from the house frontage. The house appears to float above a series of ponds with a projecting deck from the oak framed snug. To the rear, the land was sown with wildflowers to create a burst of colour and a vibrant habitat for bees and butterflies in spring and summer.
If you would like to have a chat with us about your project or want to learn more about the services we offer, we’d love you to get in touch.
design@ajaltd.co.uk
0115 841 8418