Play + Other Barns
Creating new Barns is a privilege and practice specialisation.
Something to be celebrated
Humans have long standing and deep seated fascinations with buildings not originally conceived for human inhabitation, but which conjure feelings and emotions that are deeply rooted in human need and memory. I share this and cherish Skeletal buildings like Barns which promote behaviours: Sneaking in and hiding, coorying up, climbing and dangling, taking refuge, storing precious things and playing with them.
Ancillary, agrarian, service or Industrial buildings tend to outlast the cycle of a human life and so they commonly remain as repositories of layers of History. In Barns and particularly wooden and old stone Barns I find narrative + sense much human happiness and tragedy .. Barns in their Fabric are then memory, create memory and heighten memory.
As the Italians reflect they offer much to the Genus Loci and hold in their ever reverberant fabric the essence of life….. the spirit of place.
Creating new Barns is a privilege and practice specialisation.
First gallery
Happy memories
The smell of the differing woods as the sun warms them, the taint of their polish as it remains on the hand when you leave, the immergence of their sap as you sit by the fire, the resonance in the grain and its visual and oral quality framing the everyday. Constructed as trees grow, their frames attaching themselves to the ground and different situations, with their inherent capacity for being – unpegged, restacked + re used elsewhere .as our lives dictate. Their bespoke regional flavour, their materiality, their stories and nature …as they rise in a raising by many hands to be cherished …. for they were. of the making of those that cherish them.
I played in one when I was a child and I have built them for my parents, my siblings and for clients in far away places and it remains to be … favoured work. Following a few years on the tools I forged the practice in 1999 to work with Carpenters and for Carpenters and have set up and support a few small framing yards. We are loyal to these and support and endorse three nationalities of Carpenters working in Scotland, with their fine tool prowess. They have enabled me to Design and stay hands on in the making of contemporary structures and to create … yes new Barns. It’s the Carpenter’s skills that make my work possible.
Second gallery
An unusual speciality
Shown here are a range of built things from a tiny play barn to a large open plan 500 sq. meter venue in Yorkshire… and a glimpse of some New Barns to come.
I enjoy designing the intricacies of the frame and working that through the calculation process with trusted Engineers. Devising new sculptural connections being a way to contemporise and keep up the innovation.. This to keep nudging this oldest of Building techniques further on into the sublime and preventing the burning of our trees ..because no one thought what they might do with them.
How will the next one’s stem, how will they brace and what will they embrace.?
I cannot wait to be on to the next one.
Watch this space.
The practice holds pro forma, small and large Barn house plans. Get in contact to discuss.