The Bat House, Walk Barn Farm
Subscribe now to instantly view this image
Subscribe to the Architects’ Journal (AJ) for instant access to the AJ Buildings Library, an online database of nearly 2,000 exemplar buildings in photographs, plans, elevations and details.
Already a subscriber? Sign in
Artur Salitz Download Original
Timber-framed outhouse built to provide 'bat attic' as new habitat for colony of long-eared bats and to provide a garage, summer house/games room and store for new weekend house currently under construction
The Bat House is a timber-framed outhouse, the first phase of a new weekend house near the Suffolk coast. To comply with the bat conservation license attached to the planning consent, the new bat habitat had to be standing for one breeding season before the old farm cottage, home to a colony of sixty long-eared bats, could be demolished.
Long-eared bats require a large internal volume for their summer/breeding habitat to allow ‘social flying’ before they venture out hunting for food; this determined the plan dimensions and 3m height to the apex of the attic space.
The ground floor of the building is ancillary space for the new house: a garage for the client’s tractor, a glazed summer house/games room and a log store.
The building is on axis with an avenue of oak trees and overlooks the farm pond. Black-painted timber cladding and black Marley fibre-cement roof sheeting absorb solar warmth, to the benefit of the bats in the attic.
Data
- Begun: Feb 2011
- Completed: Mar 2011
- Floor area: 90m2
- Sector: House
- Total cost: £50,200
- Procurement: Exchange of letters
- Address: Walk Barn Farm, Westleton, Suffolk, IP17 3BZ, United Kingdom
Professional Team
- Architect: Charles Barclay Architects
- Project architects: Charles Barclay, Irene Lopez
- Client: Felicity Guinness
- Planning supervisor: Charles Barclay Architects
- Bat consultant: The Landscape Partnership
- Structural engineer: Michael Hadi Associates
Suppliers
- All timber framing and cladding: Whitten Timber
- Black fibre-cement roof sheeting: Marley Eternit
- Black timber stain: Sikkens
- Galvanised steel external wall light: DES Lamps