Project Update: School Masterplan

Designscape have teamed up with Greenhalgh Landscape Architecture to deliver a Vision Document and Masterplan for the future of Westonbirt Schools.

Our journey to Zero Carbon

The biggest impacts of Climate Change are being felt most by the poorest people in the world – those who have the smallest carbon footprint, the least resilience to deal with the consequences, and who have done the least in the past to create the problem.

Carbon and our work

Corinium Museum Opening

Designscape were appointed by the Corinium Museum in Cirencester for the alteration and refurbishment of the museum in 2014.

Park House
A contemporary new house using traditional materials.

This new family home is a replacement dwelling in the Greenbelt, replacing an unremarkable series of existing buildings which occupied a prominent corner in the village Conservation area. The challenge was to design a building which responds positively to the village context, respecting the defining characteristics of the village, whilst at the same time creating an uncompromised contemporary piece of architecture, responding positively to its physical and its social context. The proposal retains one small fragment of the existing buildings which was originally a public “Reading Room” built in 1885 “for the use of men and boys of the village”. The design responds to the public realm with a series of steep (50deg) pitched gables with stone copings – familiar forms and materials, but with non-traditional detailing around openings. On the other side it responds to the private gardens with a much more open and transparent façade, connecting the living spaces to the garden and open countryside beyond. The dominant material is the Cotswold stone roof which unifies the whole composition, the glass and metal panels of the private side provide a counterpoint, which emerge subtly in the detailing around the openings, and in the staircase “turret” which provides a lookout from the private interior to the public realm. The house design has comfortably exceeded the requirements of Code for Sustainable Homes (Level 4), primarily through the use of simple passive energy design principles, but will go further still by the use of various active energy technologies.

Hill Farm Dairy
Goat farm and cheese factory

Designscape was commissioned to design a barn and dairy production facility for a new cheese making company. The design aims to reflect both the ethos of the client company and the site: a quality handmade product, using natural materials and low energy solutions, created with respect for its surroundings. Despite their size the buildings do not dominate, as they take advantage of the natural topography and step down the hill, enabling the barn and the milking parlour to sit above the dairy. The cold storage and maturing areas are pushed back into the hillside under the parlour. The result is a low impact design that naturally enhances the cheese making process, as the milk can flow by gravity from parlour to dairy, avoiding pumping and thus preserving the quality of the milk. Named by a leading French expert as one of the top 5 cheese making facilities in the world, Designscape had never previously designed a dairy.

Twinneys
A new sustainable home in the Greenbelt

This award winning new house is built on the site of a former piggery and lies within the Bath & Bristol Green Belt in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The design is conceived as a low-lying timber and glass structure supported on a terraced landscape, to blur the boundary between building and terrain. Sleeping accommodation is situated on the lower ground floor of the house with the entrance and open-plan kitchen, dining and lounge spaces above. Three terraces open out from the living areas affording panoramic views across the valley. The thermal mass and high performance of the building envelope is complemented by solar hot water panels to provide a low energy solution. A partially autonomous artist’s studio and gallery is built into the hillside to the rear.

Court Farm Barn
A Listed Barn Conversion

Situated adjacent to the Farm House, the Grade II* listed former threshing barn had fallen into a state of disrepair and the proposal was developed to repair and convert the structure to provide ancillary accommodation to the main house, to include a home-work space, kitchen, bathroom and guest bedrooms. The new functions are contained within a series of free standing white timber boxes to the west end, leaving two- thirds of the original double-height volume intact. The existing modern steel frame is utilized to support the new roof structure without distributing the extra load onto the historic walls. As part of the first phase of works, a new wood-burning boiler in an adjacent outbuilding provides heating and hot water to both the farm house and converted barn.

Cedar House
A remodelled and extended home in a Conservation Area

The client had purchased a dilapidated 1950s house in a residential street in Bristol, and wanted to transform it into a modern, bright and low energy family home. After discussions about the merits of retaining all, part or none of the existing accommodation, it was decided to leave the front part of the house in tact with a new extension to the rear. The retained section was renovated and included a new slate roof, metal windows and was overclad with insulating render to improve the thermal performance. The rear of the house took on a softer character using western red cedar cladding and contained the new heart of the house; a double height dining space with direct access into the kitchen and a new staircase leading to a first floor gallery.

Briefing document

View on ISSUU Follow this link to download our client’s workplace briefing document. This primer is intended to assist clients at the earliest stage of commissioning a building. More publications Get in contact

Tag: architecture and environment