Manor Farm Barns Barnoldby le Beck is a remote village situated near the North Eastern coast of Lincolnshire. The landscape here is characterized by flatness, punctured occasionally by mature and nascent woodland. Arable farming is evident, but in a much diminished form. Smallholdings are few and far between, having been replaced by the much greater scale of agri-business that supports our burgeoning city populations, our contemporary desire for excessive and complex consumption and our wasteful habits. As elsewhere in rural Britain, some of the agricultural buildings in this village that supported traditional farming have become derelict. They are inefficient for modern production and have outlived their use. Their redundancy is not easily addressed. There is an understandable resistance by Planning Authorities to permitting their domestication. The surfeit of ‘converted barns’, for use as second homes or for short lets, can undermine local social and economic capital. The buildings under scrutiny here, known as Manor Farm Barns, were therefore subjected to very tight planning controls when attempts were made by their owner to convert the buildings from agricultural to domestic use . Five varying planning permissions dating back to 2000 were submitted for the conversion of the barns. All were refused. In early 2007, Jonathan Hendry Architects were invited to design a new scheme and make a new application. They received positive feedback for a proposal that would see the Barns converted into a sustainable Live / Work unit. Planning permission was granted under delegated powers in August 2007 with the caveat that the development would be ‘carbon neutral’. Carbon neutral in this case would mean not only generating the energy requirement of the buildings and the appliances employed within, but also offsetting any carbon emissions caused by travelling to the site by car. This is no mean task, but the architects sought to go further. The strategy of reusing as much of the existing building fabric as possible meant that embodied energy in the production and transportations of new materials to site would be minimised. Extensive planting and onsite energy production would offset any carbon emissions from the development in its totality. Works commenced on site late in 2007. Adjustments to and repair of the main shell of the building and the installation of micro-renewable technologies were completed by Autumn 2008. Due to client commitments, the project was then put on hold until summer 2009 when work continued. The interior fixtures and fittings were installed and the project was completed in late 2010. This long gestation period, though at times frustrating for both architect and client, allowed for reflection and adjustment within the design process. The first act of building was the removal of a materially intact but redundant concrete portal frame enclosure that once housed agricultural machinery and materials. This served to open up the barns to the adjacent open fields and mature woodland to the south. The portal frame was sold off and has been used on a site elsewhere. The existing barns were then adapted and restored. The key issue in addressing the adaptive re-use of buildings is how far the existing condition is modified, between the extremes of (i) change beyond recognition, to that of (ii) spaces and forms left ‘as found’. Hendry’s strategy for re-use lies somewhere in between, veering towards the latter. Existing openings are respected and some previously bricked up windows and doors have been reinstated causing minimal disturbance to the existing condition. High performance opening and fixed windows and doors of anodized aluminium are applied to the openings. Sliding doors mounted on the outside of the building recall some of the barn’s earlier detail. The rail from which the doors hang is mounted just below the aluminium gutter at the eave preventing water ingress. Cleverly detailed seals and brushes prevent the passage of cold air. The combination of respect for the existing fabric and subtle detailing is a rich strategy. The language of farm is still palpable. The building is entered through a minimally treated glass porch. Frameless double glazed units joined with mastic are fixed back to a steel frame in the form of a table. It serves as lantern and allows daylight to flood into the area between the two buildings it conjoins. It is elegantly detailed, but for the slight clumsy patch fittings that join door to wall. To the right of the entrance, on the north side of the buildings is a newly instated pond. This was made at the request of the fire officer, to provide a supply of water in case of fire. The promotion of bio-diversity by these public servants is a novel proposition, but welcomed. Beyond the glass porch are spaces to one’s left and right. Both belong to the realm of work. To the right there are two small but generously proportioned office spaces that are arranged in an enfilade manner with a bathroom and space for biomass boiler beyond. To the right is a grand hall that will act as the hub of the workplace. Two small rooms separated by a centrally located stair have been built above on a mezzanine to make rooms within a room. There construction is of green oak, detailed in a flush manner to contrast with the language of the repaired oak trusses that support the roof. To the right of the space is a sliding arched window that looks onto a three-sided courtyard newly planted with young silver birch trees on a grid. The sliding window element pushes aluminium-framing technology to its limits and results in a threshold to the outside that is both playful and graceful. Beyond this space one passes into a kitchen that, like the work hall, is grand in scale, but filled with a greater amount of light from enormous windows placed in ‘found’ openings on the east side. These openings would have previously allowed for access by tractors and trailers. The mixing of the scales of agriculture and domesticity provide for a certain eccentricity of composition. Elsewhere there is a modesty and simplicity that avoids the austere quality that might have prevailed. The living room that separates the kitchen from the bedroom wing provides for a sense of comfort and retreat but also makes strong visual relationships with both the internal courtyard to the north and the open field to the south. The bedrooms are placed on the courtyard side, giving the access passage the more privileged light and view The building is insulated internally. Sheep’s wall insulation was originally specified, but was rejected on grounds of cost and thickness. Its use would have been tokenistic. Instead, 200mm of high performance rigid urethane insulation was used in the walls and 140mm in the roofs. This give u-values of 0.12w/m2K and 15w/m2K respectively. This level of insulation might once have been called super-insulation. We might think of it now as adequate. The energy provision strategy is impressive and costly (about £75,000). The scheme employs a 6KW multi-directional windmill and a 6KW 42m2 array of photovoltaic tiles integrated into the south facing slate roof to generate electricity in all seasons. Since operating, a substantial amount of energy has been sold back to the national grid. A 50KW boiler fed with wood pellets provides hot water for heating and washing. There is also a rainwater harvesting, filtration and distribution system and a sewage treatment system. This is a thoughtful and well-realized scheme, both in terms of its architectural attitude and self-sufficiency in terms of energy. Jonathan Hendry Architects have demonstrated an ability to work quietly and with confidence away from the glare of the London scene. Here in the Lincolnshire countryside they have executed a project that is mature, assured and elegant. I found it beautiful. It is not though, due the cost of the micro-renewable technologies employed, a panacea for how we will address both energy security and climate change in the future. David Grandorge