William’s Den is a new and exciting adventure attraction, giving children the chance to connect with nature and get active as they explore a custom designed complex that brings the great outdoors inside. Working with a large interdisciplinary team, Native led the design for the new William’s Den visitors centre.These buildings included the provision of a large new indoor play space alongside the conversion of Listed farm buildings to create a commercial kitchen and ice cream parlour, with a large double height restaurant incorporating a feature wood fired pizza oven, bar and ice cream servery. A single storey timber framed extension provides new WC facilities and further restaurant seating with views out over the restaurant courtyard and adventure park. There is a new timber framed link structure that connects the old barns to the new steel framed two storey play barn.The new buildings incorporate a gift shop, food outlet and entrance foyer with office and staff facilities that all serve the large two storey dedicated indoor play space and wider outdoor play facilities. The project incorporated a range of sustainability measures.The buildings are heated by a biomass district heating scheme with solar photovoltaic roof panels to provide renewable energy generation onsite. And the building fabric has been highly insulated using low carbon, renewable and recycled construction materials where possible to minimise the energy required to heat and cool the buildings. By using lime (instead of cement), timber, hempcrete & high performance wood fibre insulation materials throughout the build, the client has reduced the amount of co2 emitted during the construction phase and further enhanced their sustainability credentials. Low toxic, natural materials allow the building to “breathe” and create a healthy environment to the building users. The finished building was granted an Energy Performance Certificate Rating of ‘A’.