Hatton Fields Farm, Hilton

The brief

This was an old farm development that had already been worked on to some degree before we came on board. Our involvement came in two parts. The first was the house itself: extending it and changing its orientation to create a new entrance and a better flow through the living space, reconfiguring the internal layout so it worked the way the family actually lived, with a side extension added to take a utility. The second was a barn on the same site, to be converted for living across the generations and keeping the family close.

Key challenges & interesting design decisions

The barn was where the real work lay. Converting it for family use raised a use that might easily have been refused, so we built the case carefully, working with the planners and making the argument on health grounds. That meant educating the authority on the specifics, then gathering the statements and evidence needed to back it up, and in the end approval was secured.

We were also keen that the barn should still read as a barn. Rather than hide its history, we set out to keep its original features and let them show as decorative, so the character that makes a building like this worth converting stays front and centre in the finished home.