We listen to the stories of the place and consider the context, the history, the craft and the materials.
When I first met Stonewood Design to write an article for RIBA Journal just weeks before the pandemic hit in early 2020, the 20-strong practice was brimming with enthusiasm and ambition. After ten years of steady growth, it had successfully negotiated the difficult transition from small, quirky projects to more substantial work in the museum, housing, workplace and education sectors, picking up a clutch of RIBA Awards along the way. The practice had recently moved into its self-designed premises in the Cotswold village of Corsham, and had started targeting work in new markets beyond the South West.
Visiting again four years on, I am pleased to find Stonewood Design still flourishing, despite the somewhat choppy intervening times. The practice has boosted both its built portfolio and profile with the completion of three further museums –the Story of Gardening Museum and the Roman Villa Museum, both RIBA Award winners, and a museum about humanitarian Emily Hobhouse in Cornwall. Ever modest, the practice doesn’t like to boast about its rather impressive on-going client list, which includes another long-standing client, Real World Studios, Dyson Farming, a doyenne of the art world, and a leading independent school.
Rather unconventionally, the practice emerged from a construction company - Stonewood Builders - where founder Nicola du Pisanie set-up Stonewood Design in the same premises. She was joined by Matt Vaudin in 2012, followed later by Adam Chambers. The attention to detail and materials embodied by Stonewood Builders, clearly continue to inform the practice’s approach. They are firm believers in retaining a highly crafted, small project ethos even on larger projects. Material experimentation is important too – this is a practice that likes to get its hands dirty.
Talking to them about their projects, they clearly relish rich and challenging contexts, whether in terms of landscape or built heritage - Vaudin is particularly enthused by an on-going commission for a new hotel planned for a plum site opposite the splendid ruin of Tintern Abbey in the Wye Valley.
At Westonbirt School in Gloucestershire, a commission for new classroom pavilions within a 19th century walled garden was clearly inspired by the glasshouses that once occupied the site. Completed in 2023, the project is the practice’s second major education project following its breakthrough Kingswood Prep School, a £5million, cedar shingle-clad classroom and hall building in Bath in 2018. It hopes to add another, where proposals for a substantial new library are at an early stage.
Stonewood Design had plenty of experience navigating sensitive historic contexts at its RIBA Award-winning Roman Villa Museum, which completed in 2022 at The Newt in Somerset near Bruton (also the home of the Story of Gardening Museum). This hugely challenging project involved both a new build museum about the Roman villa that once occupied the site, and a full-size recreation of the villa on a nearby site to the archaeological remains. Determined to avoid any clichéd interpretation, the practice clearly put its heart and soul into this lengthy and fascinating project, visiting Pompeii as part of its research into ancient building techniques, and engaging with all manner of specialists in order to authentically recreate everything from hypocaust under floor heating to mosaics. The project has been a wonderful experience, according to Vaudin. Visiting it this spring, it’s clearly been well worth the labour of love.
‘It’s a very key project for us - all about craft, and context and making. It suited us because it’s so bespoke,’’ he says.
The practice is now tackling another archaeologydriven project – an interpretation centre for the ruins of a Norman castle on the grounds of a scheduled ancient monument.
In spring 2024 Stonewood Design completed The Creamery. Castle Cary is the location for The Creamery, next to the railway station. A former milk factory from the early 1900s, this brick building has been extended, restored and converted into a cheese making facility, along with associated retail and a café/restaurant. The design is all about showcasing the production of the buffalo mozzarella, which is visible to customers in the adjacent public café/restaurant. It’s full of engaging and finely crafted details, from the vintage milk bottles hanging over the servery to the reinterpretation of the original metal grate flooring, which was used for sliding the milk churns. Stonewood Design channelled the spirit of Titanic-era 1912 in the design of the interior, with furniture inspired by vintage railway carriages and station waiting rooms.
The Story of Emily Museum in the village of St Ive, north Cornwall, also completed in 2024. This tells the little-known story of feminist and humanitarian Emily Hobhouse, who spoke out against the UK’s use of concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War. Stonewood Design’s work here spans across several buildings, including new build staff accommodation and visitor facilities in a robust Cornish vernacular executed with a modern twist. The exhibition on the war itself is housed in a new museum building with a very different character – a windowless façade of ribbed zinc that deliberately contrasts with the more traditional character of the visitor facilities and the nearby listed Rectory where Hobhouse grew up.
There has recently been significant progress on one of the practice’s longest-running projects at Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire. After a nine-year gestation, construction has finally started on 20 new homes, and Vaudin hopes that the proposed flexible co-working space may follow suit before too long. Pleasingly, the homes are being built and jointly developed by Stonewood Homes, with whom the practice maintains an informal affiliation. Elsewhere on the site, the practice has completed Millside Red Barn, a cedar-clad archive facility housing touring equipment and stage sets.
With Stonewood Design’s four key sectors of museums, housing, workplace and education now firmly established, the practice is hoping to add leisure as a fifth strand to its portfolio, specifically surf facilities. Projects include the proposed Emerge Surf near Birmingham, for which Stonewood Design is designing associated facilities around the surfing pool, as well as several international prospects.
Stonewood Design is proud of its distinctive, rather quirky practice culture, which combines a nononsense attitude with a sense of joint endeavour, not only within its own team but with clients and collaborators as well.
‘What makes us stand out from others is the way we do things, both internally and externally,’ says du Pisanie, adding rather colourfully that the practice ‘makes shit happen while cutting through the crap’. This means trust, straight-talking and a ‘no bullshitting, no false deadlines, no blame-culture’.
Photograph: Stonewood Design. Eating together at Christmas.
This approach is compatible with its nurturing ‘Do Life’ practice ethos, enhanced by a 4.5 day–working week (the office is closed on Fridays) and a 5.45pm finishing time. Certainly there is a delight in communal activities - the last Christmas party featured a sound meditation session followed by a pottery workshop before breaking out the food, drink and music. There is a continued commitment to pro bono projects. The practice recently completed the Hermanus boxing centre in South Africa for which it also contributed funding for the roof, and is a supporter of local charity Jamie’s Farm, which offers residential stays for inner-city children.
It’s only in the last year, says Vaudin, that the studio has fully ‘got its energy back’ after a Covid-induced one-year studio closure, and subsequent hybrid working. ‘The magic happens when we’re all together,’ says du Pisanie.
The timing of the closure couldn’t have been worse – the practice had only just moved into its self-designed Delicious House studio. A conversion of a former Chinese takeaway on the village’s high street, this still bears traces of its earlier incarnation as a Salvation Army hall - Stonewood Design was pleased to retain exhortations such as ‘Prepare to Meet Thy God’ and ‘The Wages of Sin are Death, as part of the story of the building.
With this renewed sense of energy, the practice is now looking forward optimistically towards the next ten years, with a clear sense of what it does best. ‘We’re based in a West Country village, doing very bespoke projects, and that’s where we’re adding the most value,’ says Vaudin.
While its picturesque rural location, and healthy sense of work-life balance are clearly central to the practice ethos, they are no limit to aspirations. The practice is interested in expanding its client base beyond its core home region of the South West, and was recently shortlisted for a new gallery at the Science Museum. This was the first time it had been in the running for such high profile London museum work, but surely not the last.
Asked about dream future projects, Vaudin aims big - perhaps a project in a key international city such as New York, or maybe even a museum in an ancient archaeological site? He may, or may not, be joking. But it certainly feels as if Stonewood Design is well placed to go far, armed with a strong portfolio of juicy built projects that look likely to open ever-bigger doors.
I look forward to what comes next.
Pamela Buxton, May 2024.
STONEWOODDESIGN
Photographs: Making Clay Houses
Individuality
We encourage people to express themselves. We believe embracing our individuality can lead to greater creativity and innovation.
Authenticity
We’re not afraid to be ourselves, even if it means going against the grain. We’re confident in our skin and willing to share our thoughts and feelings. Expressing our unique personality and style, we don’t feel the need to conform to others’ expectations or opinions. We work creatively without fear of judgement or criticism.
Openness
We are open to new ideas, perspectives, and experiences. We believe our openness is crucial for our personal growth and development. It allows us to challenge our own beliefs and biases, which can lead to a greater understanding and appreciation of others.
Integrity
We act with integrity.
We are honest and transparent in all our dealings and interactions. Our integrity is essential to building trust and fostering strong relationships with our clients, colleagues, and partners.
Photograph on next page: Stonewood Design, The Roman Villa Museum, 2024.
The Creamery
Stonewood Design has given a century old former creamery a new lease of life as a cheese-making facility.
Located adjacent to Castle Cary railway station, the building is a well-known local landmark courtesy of its distinctive chimney, which once played a role in the dairy production process. Its latest incarnation – which also includes an associated shop and café/restaurant - returns the building to dairy function.
The original creamery’s proximity to the station reflected its use of the railway network to distribute the dairy products. Now, more than a century later, the relationship has been recast. While dairy products from locally sourced milk are once again being manufactured on the site, in its new format, the building is also a hub for people. As well as receiving visitors arriving by train - the café serves as a rather deluxe, unofficial railway waiting area with screens displaying live train times. But if customers would rather gaze at mozzarella cheese being stretched, that’s also possible – this is a building designed to, quite literally showcase the dairy manufacturing processes, with views from the café directly into the factory floor.
Stonewood Design’s first move was to decide what to keep out of the accretion of extensions and alterations made over the years to the original 1912 creamery. Briefed by the client that the outcome should be ‘1912 or invisible’, the architects removed the majority of these additions with the aim of giving the brick building back something of its original industrial character.
Top Photograph: Creamery Site Model.
Middle Photograph: Creamery Sectional Model.
Bottom Photograph: Historic Photograph from station. Photograph on next page: Creamery Elevation.
The Creamery
The next move was an extension to supplement the retained original. Old and new are linked by a glass entrance pavilion, which also frames the 13-high chimney, now exposed on all four sides for extra visual impact. From the entrance, visitors can either proceed down into the café/restaurant or enter the ground floor shop, which sells dairy products made on site such as mozzarella, butter and yoghurt.
Stonewood Design’s aim was to retain and restore as much of the original structure as possible, but with some decisive interventions. A double-height void was cut in the ground floor to enable views down into the lower ground floor cheese-making area from a glass viewing bridge. The much-altered front of the building facing the station was rebuilt with the introduction of a large glass window, a nod to the semi-open, lean-to of the creamery’s original façade. The building’s landmark chimney was found to be structurally unstable, and had to be taken down brick-by-brick and rebuilt with a more stable internal structure. Meanwhile on the lower level, the rear projection housing the café was given a new roof and floor, and now opens onto a landscaped garden.
Brickwork is a combination of recycled local bricks and imperial-sized, handmade new bricks akin to that of the original building, and with similar bullnose details. The roof is clad in locally sourced roof tiles while new thermally broken windows were inspired by the creamery’s Crittall originals.
Top Photograph: View from cafe to the cheesemaking area.
Bottom Photograph: View of chimney from the lobby.
Photograph on next page: View of cafe.
The Creamery
Creamery
Top Photograph: Entrance brick and glass detail.
Middle Photograph:
Historic milk bottle installation.
Bottom Photograph: Milk bottle balustrade detail.
Photograph on previous page: Entrance and forecourt from station.
Top Photograph: Stairwell with historic posters.
Middle Photograph: Fire at base of chimney.
Bottom Photograph: Lift and stair from lobby.
Photograph on next page: Cheesemaking area.
The Creamery
New interior details take cues from the original building and its Edwardian era. The creamery floor was originally tiled in cast iron grates infilled with concrete, which made it easier to move the milk churns around. Stonewood Design sought to emulate this with bespoke, perforated tiles filed with screed that are used throughout the entrance and café. The lift to the café/restaurant is inspired by typical 1920s ‘birdcage’ lifts, while the suspended metal ceiling panels in the lower ground lobby and café toilets also reference examples from that time.
In acknowledgement of the original creamery’s relationship with the railway, the design of the café interior references vintage railway waiting room furniture and railway carriages. Original waiting room seating formed the model for the perimeter upholstered banquettes, while in the centre, new tables and high backed benches were created as modern interpretations of seating from that era.
Café-goers are encouraged to appreciate the cheese-making process via curved glass windows onto the adjacent, double-height cheese-making area. This facility includes three stainless steel vats clad in timber with copper bands, their design inspired by equipment of that time. Further dairy production and administrative areas are located out of public view on this level.
The creamery’s reinvention provides a new chapter for a heritage building of significant local importance.
Photograph: View from Castle Cary station platform.
The Creamery
Sketch: Cloisters Hotel.
Photographs: Cornwall Architectural Trust. RIBA Summer Lecture 2023. University of Falmouth.
Story of Emily Museum
The Story of Emily Museum celebrates the life of humanitarian Emily Hobhouse, who campaigned against the UK’s use of concentration camps in the Boer War.
Located in her birthplace, the east Cornish village of St Ive, the museum site encompasses the rectory where she grew up in addition to a collection of new build and rebuilt elements. These are defined by two sharply different characters – a modern take on the traditional Cornish vernacular for the visitor amenities and staff facilities, and a contrasting, zinc-clad form for the exhibition on the war. In doing so, the buildings reflect the dislocation between Hobhouse’s St Ive early life and her later experiences in the Anglo-Boer War in southern Africa.
Elsabe Brits wrote the book “Emily Hobhouse: Feminist, Pacifist, Traitor?” in 2018, and was closely involved in curating the exhibition, working alongside Stonewood Design. and the exhibition designers
The design seeks to provide an engaging visitor experience without overpowering the fine, listed rectory, which had been previously restored. This sits at the north of the site overlooking a meadow. To the far south of the site, not visible from the rectory, sits the new War Rooms exhibition building. In between are the visitor amenity buildings. Staff accommodation is near to the site entrance. A viewing mound is located in a meadow to the west.
Top Photograph:
Story of Emily Museum site model.
Bottom Photograph: Emily Hobhouse.
Photograph on next page:
The War Rooms.
Story of Emily Museum
Visitors enter the museum through a welcome building on the footprint of an existing house (Blackthorn Grange) and cart shed. The house has been largely rebuilt in the Cornish vernacular with the retention its Yennadon stone, and follows the original window configurations with the exception of larger-scale glazing to the shop. The new retail space is double height and open plan, and is intended to feel warm, inviting and calm, with extensive use of scalloped oak joinery, patinated bronze on the welcome desk and shop fittings, and a blue lias stone floor. The use of English wood contrasts with the choice of South African yellowwood for the café, and some parts of the War Rooms.
At the back of the shop, the stone wall is ruptured to form a dramatic two metre-high arch leading through into a glass lobby. This provides a buffer zone between the rebuilt old and the new of the video room beyond, which screens an introductory film. The lobby also gives views out towards the War Rooms, which visitors will enter later on in the exhibition route.
The route begins on the other side of the shop, where visitors walk through the landscape past the café to the Rectory. Interpretation within the garden seeks to recreate the atmosphere of Emily’s early life from a swing in the landscape to a court for battledore, a badminton-like game that she was known to have enjoyed playing there. Inside the Rectory, rooms give an insight into her life growing up there in the late 19th century. Stonewood Design supported the interpretation, creating a pitch pine-boot room where visitors exchange their shoes for Victorian leather slippers, and codesigning a garden gazebo that incorporates a laser-cut extract from one of Emily’s letters.
The garden path leads down past the meadow to the War Rooms, which tells the story of the Anglo-Boer War and Hobhouse’s involvement in it as an activist raising awareness of conditions in the concentration camps.
Top Photograph: Blackthorn Grange welcome building.
Bottom Photograph: Blackthorn Grange interior. Photograph on next page: The War Rooms behind Blackthorn Grange and the Introduction Building.
Story of Emily Museum
Top Photograph: The War Rooms exhibition.
Middle Photograph: The War Rooms exhibition.
Bottom Photograph:
The War Rooms reception desk.
Photograph on previous page:
The War Rooms behind Introduction Building.
Top Photograph: Servery Detail.
Middle Photograph: Bench Detail.
Bottom Photograph:
The War Rooms Entrance.
Photograph on next page:
The War Rooms Elevation.
Photograph on following pages: Cafe Elevation.
Story of Emily Museum
Stonewood Design wanted the museum to be a relatively unobtrusive presence on the site, and located where it would be shielded by nearby hedges. Clad in vegetation-coloured standing seam zinc with a scalloped profile at the entrance, the building is enigmatic – even the sole entrance window is recessed and barely visible.
The blankness of the façade creates a sense of alienation within the Cornish landscape before visitors enter the exhibition inside. Here they are hit by 26 degree Celsius conditions, signalling the very different climate of South Africa, before embarking on the main war exhibition. This also tells the story of Hobhouse’s life post-war including her memorial in South Africa, where she was celebrated for her humanitarian work. Stonewood Design worked with Elsabe Brits and the exhibition designers to ensure the design of the building supported the exhibition sequence and concepts. The Story of Emily exhibition content was developed to portray her life and works with honesty and thoroughness.
Entrance and visitor amenities include a gold leaf, resin-topped reception desk created by a local surfboard shaper. A water fountain includes a grill with a lace pattern inspired by a design created at a textiles school ran by Hobhouse after the Boer War.
Visitors wanting to explore South African hospitality can head to the café. This overlooks a productive garden and is configured from new build elements topped respectively with Cornish Delabole slate and zinc roofing. The garden walls are conceptually continued into the café as stone walling, and are part of an interior palette featuring more yellowwood joinery and blue lias flooring. But the showstopping feature is the façade facing the garden, which is a single piece of glass at 20 x3m. This gives north-facing views of the productive garden and a glasshouse, manufactured to a traditional Victorian design.
The final part of the museum site is the viewing mound. This has been landscaped to create a spiral up to a viewing area with extensive views over Bodmin moor. In doing so, it gives visitors a view of a Cornish landscape that is little changed since Emily’s day.
Story of Emily Museum
Sketch: Tate St. Ives. Shortlisted Competition.
Photograph: Cake Sale at the office. Raising funds for Monang Pre-School project, South Africa.
Westonbirt Walled Garden School
“A series of visually lightweight structures that appear quite transparent from within the walled garden would help conserve the original character and intention for this space.”
Historic England
Westonbirt Walled Garden School is situated within Westonbirt Park and Gardens and adjacent to Westonbirt House, (both Grade 1 listed).
The School is contained within a courtyard known as the “Walled Garden”. It is directly north of the Grade II* listed Italian Garden and is enclosed by a traditional brick and stone wall which is bookended east and west by two ornate pavilions.
The Walled Garden at one time contained a series of low level green houses. Now, only Grade II* listed Camellia House, Palm House and the remnants of the 1905 glasshouses to the north east of Camellia remain. These historic buildings are predominantly steel frame, exposing elegant decorative steel structures. The Italian Garden and Walled Garden are an important part of the School’s heritage.
Stonewood Design were appointed to develop design proposals for a new eight classroom teaching facility within the Walled Garden. The classrooms are to be flexible and to be used by either the Prep School or the Senior School.
The design incorporates a series of single storey pitched roof buildings that are subservient to, and maintain the hierarchy of, Camellia and Palm House. A clear counterpoint between the new buildings and the Heritage Asset was important. The new classrooms are reminiscent of the historic greenhouses that once inhabited the Walled Garden. They adopt a light coloured material palette for the facade using white bricks and light grey window frames and zinc roofs.
Westonbirt Walled Garden School
Westonbirt Walled Garden School
Combined with the highly glazed fenestration, this creates lightweight structures which have transparent and reflective qualities within the Walled Garden. Emphasis is on permeability rather than opaque. References are made to details within the Walled Garden.
It is important that the proposals preserve the legibility of the Walled Garden as a space . Courtyard spaces are created within the scheme to reinforce the horizontal connections between the east and west side of the Walled Garden through Camellia House. The courtyard spaces also encourage connectivity through the age groups, from pre-school through to senior school, providing areas and opportunities for outdoor play and learning.
Internally, finishes are light and simple, with exposed steelwork reflecting the decorative qualities of Camellia House.
Photographs on this page: New classrooms and Camellia House
Photograph on the next page: New classroom interior.
Westonbirt Walled Garden School
Sketch:
Emerge Surf Inland Wavepool, Birmingham.
Top Photograph: Making a wooden surfboard, Cornwall. Bottom Photograph: Making classroom flooring, Monang Pre-School project, South Africa.
a RIBA South
From a simple, elegant glass elevation, the Roman Villa Museum focuses its view towards a landscape which reinterprets the ruins of Hadspen Roman Villa.
Hadspen Roman Villa was discovered in 1832 Excavations of the site took place between 1968 and 1970. This revealed structural remains, pottery, coins and part of a mosaic floor which suggested a substantial Villa. Further excavations in 2015 revealed the true extent of the Villa and its outbuildings. It had been built, adapted and enlarged from the 3rd to the 5th centuries AD.
The Roman Villa Museum conserves and displays these archaeological finds in order to extend our knowledge of Roman Britain. A portion of the Villa, including the bath house, is on view in the centre of the Museum.
A full scale reconstruction of the Roman Villa is viewed at all times from the Roman Villa Museum.
The remaining part of the Villa remains have been re-buried for preservation. Playful landscape design above allows visitors to appreciate the full scale of the remains below.
Roman Villa Museum
Roman Villa Museum
Photograph:
View from within the Museum, looking out to the reconstructed Villa.
The Roman Villa Museum has received
West Award 2023 as well as the RIBA South West Project Architect of the Year Award 2023.
The reconstructed Roman Villa enabled Stonewood Design to explore, through detailed research of Roman building techniques, our passion for craft, context and history in the creation of a 1:1 artefact.
The Villa became a learning exploration of constructions as varied as rammed earth, thatch, oak shingles and wattle and daub using clay from the site. Internally pilae stacks form a hypocaust void beneath the floor. Terracotta tubuli line the internal walls to allow hot air to rise through the building from the hypocaust.
Roman Villa Museum
Photograph on this and adjacent page: Reconstructed Villa Elevation. Photograph on this page: Stonewood Design in front of the Villa.
The Museum design continued Stonewood Design’s interest in creating exhibition experiences that are not solely insular but look out and connect to the wider landscape in which they are situated.
The Museum is intended to be a “background building” and is recessive to the landscape and sky above. It floats above the ground to allow space over the archaeology below. All drainage is above the ground.
The 50m long glazed elevation of the Museum is free from visible fixings and structure and incorporates glass spacers, with the intention to not distract from the internal and external exhibits.
Structure and services are concealed by a vaulted oak lined ceiling which maximises the available height and provides a sense of the geometries of Roman architecture. A tactile clay plaster lines the internal walls and regulates internal humidity levels.
The exhibition design is centred around the exposed ruins of the Roman Villa. A sweet chestnut topped balustrade lines the ruins and maximises the views through with minimal fixings and no vertical supports.
Roman Villa Museum
Photographs from top to bottom:
Wattle and daub on the activity barn.
Terracotta tubili line the hypocaust wall. Pizza oven in the bakery barn.
Pilae tiles support the floor of the hypocaust in the bath house.
Photograph: Caldarium within the Villa.
The environmental design focuses on controlling humidity and temperature. Electricity is the primary energy source. This is supplemented by a photovoltaic array located on the roof, which is capable of offsetting the annual electrical consumption for the building, effectively making it zero carbon operationally.
The Museum is of lightweight construction, with high levels of insulation, air tightness and high performance glazing to control solar gains. A building management system monitors the conditions of the space. Heating and cooling is achieved using a refrigerant heat pump based system and the building is fossil fuel free. The system provides a flexible approach for exhibition fit out to allow the exhibits to be changed without requiring major amendments to the infrastructure of the building.
Roman Villa Museum
Photograph above:
Terracotta lined arch entrance to the grain dryer furnace.
Photograph adjacent:
A selection of the crafts employed at the Villa.
Photograph: Museum Elevation.
Sketch: Roman Villa Museum. Hypocaust.
Roman Villa Museum.
Top Photograph: Early visit to the villa archaeology.
Bottom Photograph: Inspecting museum foundations adjacent the villa archaeology.
Real World Studios is a residential recording studio situated in Box Mill in the village of Box, Wiltshire. It is closely associated with the Real World Records record label and the WOMAD Festival.
Stonewood Design have been working with Real World since 2015, in developing a masterplan for the site.
The overall development includes a mixed housing development on the adjacent timber yard site, and a co-working office building at Millside, both designed by Stonewood Design. The two developments sit either side of the Bybrook river and valley, in a picturesque rural setting.
The Millside Red Barn has been built as an archive and store for Real World Studios. It was also designed specifically as a home for the stage sets and tour equipment.
Millside Red Barn
Photographs from top to bottom: Millside Red Barn from the Big Room studio. Model of the barn and co-work office. Barn interior.
Photograph: Millside Red Barn from the adjacent field.
Millside Red Barn
Top Photograph: Millside Red Barn gable elevation.
Bottom Left Photograph: Interior with doors open.
Bottom Right Photograph: Millside Red Barn gable.
Photograph on next page: Millside Red Barn from across the Bybrook River.
Millside Red Barn
Sketch: Section. Somerset School Library.
Photograph: The Creamery. Meeting the planners on-site.
Matter Studio
Matter Studio has received a RIBA South West Award 2024.
Matter are a product innovation consultancy based in a historic building in the centre of Bath. Originally built as a carriage works, their premises had changed use several times and was carved up into a warren of poorly connected spaces without much natural light. Stonewood Design have transformed it into a more open, welcoming, flexible studio that supports, frames and shapes how the company works.
Due to the confidential nature of their design work, Matter are not always able to showcase their projects, so the studio needs to convey their ethos and personality. The attention to detail is obsessive, joyful, and inventive – a spirit that extends from the fine metal entrance gates, through the front of house lighting and worktops, to the storage and pipework in the toilets.
There are two glazed entrance porches, both opening on to a new central ‘design corridor’ containing a large table for meetings and presentations, as well as the office kitchen. Putting social interactions and wellbeing at the heart of the studio, this is an inspired move. Behind the kitchen is a window on to a workshop where prototypes or mock-ups of ideas can be made. Upstairs is an open-plan workspace.
Something refreshing is the make-do-and-mend way that equal value has been given to all elements of the fabric, whether they are bespoke new items or standard, crude building materials. In one room where a ceiling was removed, trusses made with basic stamped metal connecting plates have just been left exposed; and where a new cut-out was made in a concrete floor, the cutter marks and metal deck formwork are visible. It is evident that every decision has been carefully considered, and there is a strong enough hierarchy that the bigger moves remain legible.
Top Photograph: Handrail detail.
Bottom Photograph: New entrance gates. Photograph on next page: Matter Studio from the main road.
Matter Studio
Top Photograph: Design space.
Middle Photograph: Stairwell.
Bottom Photograph:
View into the workshop.
Matter Studio
Photograph: View into the workshop from the stairwell
Sketch: Timber Yard, Real World Studios.
Photograph: Roman Villa Museum visit.
House at a former Mill
A new home set in a beautiful Wiltshire valley on the site of a former Mill. A home for a family to come together and make new memories.
The house is characterised by three stone barn volumes around a central zinc clad link. The red metal reflects the hues and tones of the existing roofs and trees in the landscape.
Generous, light filled volumes have a clear connection to views and nature.
The re-use of natural stone found on site has been a key driver to the material palette and provided a contextual re-interpretation of local stone buildings. Deep reveals on larger south facing openings shade from summer sun whilst framing views out.
The structure is predominantly low-water-use load bearing clay block with elements of expressed exposed timber.
The design incorporates a variety of external spaces for different seasons, views and times of day.
Stonewood Design worked to the principle of a climate resilient design that responds to a rising flood plain and modern weather events. They used a combination of high airtightness, thick thermal insulation, PV array, air source heat pump, whole house MVHR, borehole water supply and rainwater collection for gardens.
Top Photograph: Stone and zinc detail.
Middle Photograph: Staircase detail.
Bottom Photograph: View from lounge window.
Mill Farm
Photograph: The house from the water meadow.
Top Photograph: Entrance door.
Middle Photograph: Interior view.
Bottom Photograph: Staircase detail.
Mill Farm
Top Left Photograph: Stair detail.
Top Right Photograph: Stair landing.
Bottom Photograph: Bedroom barn.
Sketch: Section through the landscape. Story of Gardening Museum.
Photographs: Creating a window display.
Delicious House
Delicious House dates from the 17th &18th centuries and originally, in part, comprised of a malthouse. It is set with it’s gable onto the busy high street of Corsham.
During the 20th Century the building became the Corsham Corn Store. The building had been gutted in the mid-1980s and until recently housed a Chinese Take-Away.
It is Grade II Listed.
Stonewood Design refurbished the building to create a permanent base for their architectural practice and to breathe new life into the historic building and give back to the community of Corsham.
Its significance derived solely from its external appearance and the evidence of former openings within its external elevations. Although little remained internally, the traditional form of the building and the mix of materials used make a positive contribution to the character of this part of the Conservation Area. It also has cultural and social significance, and contributes to our understanding of the small-scale industrial processes which occurred within the rear yard areas (formerly burgage plots) of the town until the early 20th century.
The building was structurally in very poor condition when Stonewood Design took the decision to invest in its future: the flank walls had large cracks and were moving outwards and, alarmingly, the back wall was coming away from both flank walls. An “honest” colourful goal post structure was inserted in the middle of the building.
Photographs: Historic photographs of Delicious House.
Photograph: Delicious House from the High Street.
Delicious House
Stonewood Design wanted, where possible, to expose as much of the internal fabric of the building, and to allow the volume of the building to be enjoyed.
They incorporated a third middle “mezzanine” type floor within the front of the building. This meant the practice could occupy three connected floors (rather than having a separated upstairs and downstairs), and could work as one organisation.
The three floors are connected by a metal feature stair, around which a full height void is created. This allows connectivity and great views through the space from many angles. The stair is the heart or hub of the practice and allows for incidental meetings or chats.
The entrance to the building from the High Street is a communal meeting type space. Models are displayed in the shop window. There is a connection here with the life of the busy High Street, with people looking in or popping in. Children from the nearby school stand on the external bench and peer in. The communal space is used as a resource for the community and has already housed drinks events, visits, and cake sales.
Photographs: Delicious House interior.
Delicious House
Photograph: Delicious House interior.
Sketch: Roman Villa Museum.
Photograph: Helping with lambing. Jamie’s Farm.
Cornish House
Cornish House uses back-bedded Yennadon Stone from nearby Dartmoor to form a courtyard collection of homes for three families.
Reclaimed Delabole roof slates are laid traditionally in diminishing courses.
The natural stone quoins and uneven reveals to the edges and openings conceal the frames of the large windows.
The rugged language of natural materials continues internally. Clay plaster to ceilings and wall sits above rough sawn oak boarding.
Top Photograph: Entrance door.
Bottom Photograph: Communal Landing.
Photograph on next page: Elevation detail.
Cornish House
Top Photograph: Window detail.
Bottom Left Photograph: Stair detail.
Bottom Right Photograph: Window detail.
Cornish House
Photograph: External view.
Sketch: Auditorium. Somerset School Library.
Photograph: Making Japanese polished balls.
Orchard Field
88 homes at Orchard Field, Cirencester, 26 of which are affordable.
The houses have been designed to minimise energy use. Walls are 450mm thick, and energy will be supplemented through solar arrays and air source heat pumps. All houses will meet the AECB Building Standard.
Whilst the environmental design was key, it was imperative that the masterplan created social spaces that are successful and last, and that a community will thrive.
The layout is “landscape led”. Four different courtyards are planted with fruit trees. Each courtyard is distinct and of a different character.
Photograph: Aerial view of Orchard Field.
Photograph on next page: 3 bed houses.
Orchard Field
Top Photograph: 3 bed terrace and 5 bed detached house.
Bottom Photograph: 4 bed houses.
Orchard Field
Top Photograph: 5 bed detached house.
Bottom Photograph: 4 bed house.
Sketch:
Emerge Surf Inland Wavepool, Birmingham. Plan layout of entrance building.
Photograph: Preparing food together in the office.
Kingswood School
In 2019 Stonewood Design received a RIBA National Award for Kingswood Preparatory School and Nursery as well as a RIBA South West Project Architect of the Year Award.
A new classroom and hall building for Kingswood School in Bath.
Kingswood School, as part of their ongoing building programme, and within the framework of their Strategic Masterplan, created new accommodation for the Preparatory School.
The School re-accommodates facilities in a fitfor-purpose new school building. This includes classrooms for Years 5 and 6, Music, Art, Technology and Design facilities, STEAM and a new School Hall.
The new building takes the form of a collection of pitched and hipped roofs. Roofs and walls are clad in western red cedar shingles, a woodland crafted response, with a scale that children can relate to. A plinth is formed in a tactile brick which has the tones of Bath stone, relating the building to the wider school site and the World Heritage City.
“The mature beeches along the city skyline are now joined by pitched-roof volumes in cedar with an airy, woody feel and relaxed circulation you could happily skip along....... ......it is a reminder that in the right hands a technology such as cross laminated timber, which is increasingly common in schools, can be used well and simply to make a good space extraordinary.”
“The building is inspirational and has had such a positive impact on our teaching. ”
Mark Brearey, Headmaster, Kingswood Preparatory School.
Internal view from school
Photograph on next page:
Photograph:
hall.
Kingswood School
Top Photograph: Art classroom.
Middle Photograph:
Shared library breakout space.
Bottom Photograph: Stonewood Design visit to Kingswood.
Kingswood School
Photograph: Elevation detail.
Sketch: Internal space studies. Somerset School Library.
Photographs: Making stepping stones. Kingswood Nursery and Pre-Prep.
RIBA South West Award 2015.
The restoration of a Grade II Listed Barn and the intervention of a Pod Gallery into the Barn.
Stonewood Design wished to restore the Barn to it’s full glory and remove past interventions within it, which served to domesticate what is a bold historic structure.
They also wanted to sensitively and creatively manage the interface between the House and the Barn. Currently this line is blurred, and the two do not relate to each other successfully.
There is an opportunity to view the interior of the Barn from the House, and celebrate the tough, axial sense of space within the Barn.
Stonewood Design wanted to create a space within the Barn, which was warm, dry, light and airtight, and which can be used to house a personal collection of watercolour paintings.
They created an intervention in the Barn which is conceived as a Pod Gallery.
The Pod Gallery is a lightweight timber structure, which in its concept is a “reversible” interventionie. it “sits lightly” within the Barn.
The Pod Gallery only touches the Barn where it sits on the existing raised Barn floor, directly above the cellar below. It cantilevers over this floor, giving the impression of floating, The Walls and Roof of the Pod Gallery sit away from the Barn. The roof undulates around the existing Barn trusses, creating a cast of the negative space.
The soft warm qualities of the timber Pod Gallery contrast with the hard cold structure of the stone Barn.
Top Photograph: Door detail. Bottom Photograph: Arrow slot window detail.
Photograph on the next page: Pod Gallery from the Barn.
Top
Middle
Bottom
Photograph on the next page: Lambing in the barn.
Photograph: Pod Gallery within the barn.
Photograph:
View out from the Pod Gallery.
Photograph: Pod Gallery within barn roof.
Sketch: Roman Villa Museum
Photographs: Airtightness taping workshop.
Story of Gardening Museum
The Story of Gardening museum has been awarded a RIBA National Award 2021, a RIBA South West Award Sustainability Award 2021, and the Newt in Somerset have received the RIBA South West Client of the Year 2021.
Hidden from view on the edge of a small woodland, the Story of Gardening museum is a space of calm serenity that celebrates the historic Somerset landscape that surrounds it.
From a distance, the only hint of a built structure is a balustrade that runs along the edge of the museum’s grassed roof, where deer and other wildlife roam freely. From here, a treetop walkway, known as the Viper, gently snakes down into the woodland, fully immersing the visitor in nature.
As the walkway winds its way through the tree canopy, the visitor catches the first glimpses of the museum’s glazed façade between the trees and foliage. It is an unexpected and almost incongruous sight to find such an elegant civic space hidden away in this remote bucolic setting.
As the name suggests, the museum’s permanent exhibition centres on the history of gardening, from biblical times to the present. It also explores how tools and techniques have evolved over time. The exhibition spaces offer broad views back out to the woodland, maintaining a constant dialogue between interior and exterior.
Top Photograph: Model.
Middle Photograph: “Viper” treetop walkway.
Bottom Photograph: Start of the exhibition. Photograph on the next page: The museum set into the landscape.
Story of Gardening Museum
Top Left Photograph: Museum entrance.
Bottom Left Photograph: Exhibition room.
Bottom Right Photograph:
View from the entrance.
Story of Gardening Museum
Photograph: Exhibition rooms.
Roman Villa Museum
Sketch: Environmental strategy. Story of Gardening Museum.
Photographs: Site Visit to Timber Yard.
Somerbrook
Great Somerford is a village and civil parish within Dauntsey Vale, Wiltshire, near the south bank of the river Avon.
Somerbrook is a housing development within Great Somerford. It consists of 38 houses, ranging from 2 bedroom to 5 bedroom. It includes affordable homes distributed through the masterplan.
The houses blend a mix of materials of brick, stone and render, in keeping with the context of the village.
The development has its own identity and sense of community. This is focussed around a new village green at the heart of the scheme, onto which a terrace of houses have their frontages.
Photographs:
Elevations in brick, stone and render.
Photograph on next page:
Mix of 4 bed market houses and 3 bed affordable houses.
Somerbrook
Top Photograph:
bed typologies.
Photograph:
bed affordable houses.
Somerbrook
Photograph: Houses in roughcast render.
Sketch: The Cloisters.
Photographs: Emerge Surf Inland Wavepool team. Surf after a meeting.
Three Cottages
The Three Cottages site consisted of three terraced houses which had been uninhabited for quite some time. As a planning strategy the design subsumed the theoretical volume of the three terraced houses into one new home.
The clients for the new house set the brief that the design should create a “forever and ever” home for them. This was their opportunity to define how they lived as a large family, in a new five bedroomed house.
Long distance countryside views were important to capture at certain places in the house.
The clients were keen to use traditional materials in a contemporary way. Attention to detail was a key instruction from them.
The house consists of two main materials: Cotswold stone on the exterior, and a raw exposed in-situ concrete on the interior.
Load bearing concrete walls run from front to back dividing the layout of the house into three, with a central entrance hall leading you through the building to the Kitchen / Living area to the rear.
The three walls are a subtle but poetic reference to the existing three cottages that once inhabited the site.
Top Photograph: Rear elevation and studio.
Bottom Photograph: Living space.
Photograph on the next page: Elevation detail.
Three Cottages
Top Left Photograph: Kitchen detail.
Top Right Photograph: Wine rack detail.
Bottom Photograph: Stair detail.
Photograph on the next page: Bathroom.
Sketch: Museum of Cycling and Velodrome.
Photograph: Fire chat outside the office.
Myrtle Garden Studio
RIBA National Award 2015.
RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize 2015 Finalist.
The Garden Studio serves as space to work, to sew, to play guitar, to sleep, or as a hide to observe the woodland wildlife.
The key driver was to create a design which worked seamlessly with the natural forms and levels of the garden, in order that an architecture is created which is less of a building, and more of a landscape.
Between architect and client, concepts were discussed such as creating a “ha-ha”, or natural forms of shelter on the site.
The intensive planted roof disappears into the flora of its surroundings. The walls become stone garden walls which retain the undulating level changes on the site.
Windows are located at key locations, to maximise views. Certain views are framed - to particular trees, or to a museum across the valley.
The Garden Studio is clad in pre-patinated copper to blend with the natural colours of the landscape.
Internally soft, crafted materials line the surfaces, as elements of furniture. An oak lined storage wall incorporates a sofa bed, a wood burner, and cupboards. Behind the oak wall a wet-room is lined in copper, and incorporates bespoke concrete sanitaryware.
A sprinkling of woodland light is cast onto the internal surfaces of the Garden Studio, from discreet rooflights above. These also frame high level views of the trees overhead.
The project has been accepted by the local deer community, who have been spotted wandering over and around the Garden Studio - a testament to the concept.
Top Photograph: Rooflight detail. Middle Photograph: Copper detail.
Bottom Photograph: Internal cupboard doors. Photograph on the next page:
Myrtle Garden Studio
“We have a building that we love to look at and love to occupy. People passing our house regularly ask about it and even take photos.
The Stonewood Design team are full of ideas but still take great pains to listen to our needs and input.
Their attention to detail and the love and care they have taken over our project is something else.”
Jane Atkinson and Steve Darling Myrtle Garden Studio.
Top Photograph: External view.
Bottom Photograph: Stonewood Design with clients Jane and Steve. Photograph on the next page: Bathroom detail.
Myrtle Garden Studio
Sketch: Elevation. Somerset School Library.
Stonewood Design
Delicious House
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stonewooddesign.co.uk
All building photographs: Craig Auckland, Fotohaus. Except:
Roman Villa Museum: Pages 43 & 49: Thijs Wolzak. Page 47: Joe Silver.
Narratives.
“Stonewood Design understood our needs and ambitions, whilst innovating and exploring unique solutions.
They had the dexterity to work with historical experts and engineers to create a working hypocaust, whilst at the same time working with glass engineers to create a glazed elevation for the Museum, free from visible fixings and structure.”
