Gluckman Smith were approached by the emerging furniture and product design practice James Smith Designs to transform Argal Home Farm, a Cornish former farmstead, into a vibrant and inspirational place to live and work. The built project stands as an exemplar for new rural workspace and community. Proposals were threefold: the creation of a new and highly specified timber workshop facility, the conversion of a traditional barn into studios for local creative enterprises and artist residencies, and the replacement of the farmhouse to provide a contemporary family home. The timber workshop lies at the centre of this new enterprise at Argal. In keeping with the working medium of the client, timber in various forms was employed as a root material throughout. The frame is a glulam structure which provides elegantly the clear spans required for the workshop floor. The design of Argal provides the environment which allows residents and visitors to thrive, promotes well-being and will stand the test of time. At the heart of this design is structural timber which embodies the work of the client and the spirit of the place, poetically and practically. A Redundant Farm Gluckman Smith were approached by the emerging furniture designer James Smith Designs to transform Argal Home Farm, a redundant Cornish farmstead, into a vibrant and inspirational place to live and work. The new workshop forms part of a masterplan for Argal Farm, including the conversion of a stone barn into co-working space for local creative businesses and a replacement farmhouse in Cornish granite complemented by landscaped kitchen garden and orchard. Placed perpendicular to the creative studios, the workshop is bold in formal expression yet reminiscent of the stables building that it replaces. Working collaboratively with the client, a design concept for the workshop emerged from a detailed brief, balancing the technical requirements of furniture making with the desire to create an exceptional workspace. Environmentally, providing suitable lighting and mitigating dust and fumes required a thorough analysis of extract ventilation, heating and natural light levels. Argal Reimagined In his work, the client embraces traditional tooling with emerging technology, and the building is designed to reflect this range and craft. Wood is used in different forms throughout: glulam structure with expressed jointing, external cladding in larch and machined ply for internal finishes. The glulam construction was employed to provide the large unobstructed workspace in an elegant form. The new building houses a full timber workshop facility combining traditional wood-working machinery and hand tools, with a 5-axis CNC milling machine. The reimagined farm is flourishing, with the timber frame workshop at the centre of this new creative community. Comfort and Efficiency Through a fabric-first approach to detailing the workshop achieves a high thermal performance. The timber is sustainably sourced, and the design ensures a low embodied and operational carbon use. The farm uses a biomass boiler for heating the assembly of buildings which achieves significant energy savings. The north facing roof pitch houses a range of skylights providing a consistent source of daylight, casting minimal shadows, optimal for detailed joinery work. The southerly roof pitch is designed with a deep overhang to control direct sunlight. The timber elevations are complemented by sheet metal roofing, fitting with the simplicity of the building’s geometry. The southerly roof pitch contains fully integrated solar photo-voltaic panels. The client wanted to achieve an integrity and honesty in the design which was reflected in the geometry, choice of building materials and detailing. Timber, with its inherent properties of flex, strength and warmth, could fill this brief technically and aesthetically. The workshop required large clear spans to accommodate substantial pieces of mechanical kit including a 5 axis CNC machine, and bulky pieces of working timber. The wide spans were achieved with a glulam frame system which provides an innovative response in an elegant form. The sequence of glulam frames run continuously from the workshop floor to the roof ridge and their clean lines are exposed and celebrated. The timber provides an important sense of warmth to the space that could not be found with steel. The expressed timber frame with visible jointing conveys the spirit of the workshop as a workplace and space for making. Externally, the larch cladding silvers gradually, softening the appearance of the buildings in its landscape. Key to the success of the project was understanding the client’s wider vision in supporting creative practitioners to grow and thrive within the region, drawing inspiration from nearby conservation and arts projects at Kestle Barton and CAST in Helston. As members of a creative community at Great Western Studios in West London Gluckman Smith were attuned to the qualities of spaces and cross-programming required to make a creative-hub thrive. In this sense, the designs produced were sensitive not only to the rural setting but also to the intended users. We appreciated that the site was located beside the client’s own home and therefore gave emphasis to produce a scheme that took account of a wider masterplan balancing live-work interests at Argal Home Farm. In helping the client develop the concept of the development, Gluckman Smith had a firm understanding of the unique nature of the proposed workshop and studio concept and its differentiation from typical workshops or industrial estates found in the region. One of the client’s main aims was to create a low energy building which was sensitive in design to the beautiful surrounding landscape. Our experience in sustainability and interest in the relationship between building and landscape provided a close alignment of thinking. Understanding that the client was themselves a designer with a strong design ethos, was important to a healthy working relationship and facilitated a collaborative approach throughout. Good communication with the client and other consultants, allowed for the project to be met on time and within budget. Exceptional customer service throughout the project, ensured the client experience was professional and enjoyable. The result has been a follow up project with the client to design a replacement farmhouse at Argal. Following a client brief for a low-energy building, the workshop was designed in keeping with the principles of the Passive House standard, providing a high-performance envelope. This approach was championed by Project Architect Diana Dina, a certified Passive House Designer. Diana is an active participant and voice at national and international conferences on sustainability. Training is an important part of Gluckman Smith’s ethos in promoting personal and career development. A biomass boiler provides heat to the entire farm. This is supplemented by renewable electricity provided via photovoltaic panels integrated flush into the workshop roof. The workshop achieves very low energy consumption (EPC rating A+) while achieving excellent internal comfort levels. Combining a low energy building envelope, a low energy biomass boiler system, and the generation of energy on-site via photovoltaics has the potential to come close to achieving ‘net zero energy’. The fabric-first approach involves the following elements: - highly insulated Glulam wood structure - timber frame walls clad externally in timber - low air permeability (3m³/m²h) - timber frame, double glazed windows and rooflights - thermal bridge-free design - high performance timber doors - highly insulated reinforced concrete slab - natural ventilation & high-spec dust extract ventilation The use of structural timber is aligned with the client’s own creative talent. James Smith is gaining wide recognition for his timber product designs and his work was recently featured in The Financial Times How To Spend It and Monocle magazine. He leads a community of like-minded entrepreneurs looking for innovative ways to live, work and play. As a designer based in Cornwall, he is carving a growing reputation for timber craft with enduring quality and delivering a vision for the site with the use of timber at its heart. James Smith’s farm at Argal brings a highly attractive and well-equipped workspace to a rural setting. It shows how architecture can facilitate the emergence of new community in less accessible places. The use of timber was central to the success of the project and the brand of Argal Home Farm as an entrepreneurial hub. The workshop was designed to achieve net zero energy. This principle forms part of the client’s wider sustainability strategies and informs the community’s ethos and operation. For Gluckman Smith, the project was an opportunity to demonstrate the scope to create a highly desirable rural workspace with a low energy approach.