Designing a barn conversion requires a very different approach to designing a conventional home. Here's how to get the most from your barn.
A barn conversion is one of the most exciting architectural briefs you can give an architect. The raw material — high spaces, original timber trusses, massive stone walls, generous plan areas — is extraordinary. The challenge is to create comfortable, habitable spaces without destroying the character that makes barns so compelling.
Design principles we apply at The Yorkshire Architect to barn conversions include: retaining and celebrating original features — stone walls, timber trusses, threshing floor doors; using large glazed openings in gable ends to bring light into the deep plan; creating a double-height living space in the main threshing area; using a mezzanine to provide sleeping accommodation without closing off the high ceiling; and choosing materials (concrete floors, steel, glass) that contrast with the stone and timber rather than imitate them.
The most successful barn conversions feel genuinely like converted barns — not like conventional houses that happen to be in a barn shape. This requires restraint as well as skill: knowing what not to do is as important as knowing what to do.
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