Garden Room

Garden room and landscaping in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Dorset. 2016

Shortlisted for the Brick Awards 2017

The tight complex of historic cottages and sheds in which this project is located sits in a Conservation Area on the edge of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Our project replaces a poor quality kitchen extension with an intricately designed addition which provides a light and airy music room and library. This new space better balances the provision of living areas to the four bedrooms upstairs, and connects the interior to the garden. The roof is carefully composed to minimise the external volume and maximise internal volume, while letting plenty of light deep into the ground floor plan. The low eaves and pitched copper roofs give a fairy tale character, which is also similar in expression to those of the various outbuildings and sheds within the complex.

We designed the hard landscaping with reference to the work of Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll, using red and white brick, hand-made pamments and local Purbeck stone. A tank just outside the window seat catches rainfall from the roof and a fountain creates a calming sound.

North Dorset District Council commented in their planning approval that:

“The proposed development will ensure that the character and appearance of the Conservation Area is preserved whilst the existing landscaping and quality of design are high meaning that it will be sympathetic to this area of the AONB. The character of existing dwellings as well as that of neighbouring dwellings will be preserved and in fact enhanced through this extension of high quality”.