La Grange

The materiality of the storage, workshop and gym building is humble and familiar – rusted corrugated metal, polycarbonate, sawn timber – but careful detailing brings refinement to the project. The building has a clear and rational architectural language. Built from standard timber sections, the distinctive barrel vaulted roof is formed by bow-trusses seated in doubled-up columns. A cast concrete shoe supports each column, with a ‘tongue’ of concrete rising up to meet the timber uprights. Throughout the building, connections between materials are celebrated and clearly expressed, laying bare the methods of construction. The exposed services, sliding internal partitions and regular structural grid enable the building to be adaptable to evolving client needs. The building can be subdivided or consolidated through the alteration of internal partitions with little or no wasteful remedial work to the wider fabric. Despite its functional purpose, the project is characterised by theatrical transformations. Behind the repeating slender timber cladding, a layer of translucent polycarbonate allows filtered daylight into the building from all directions. In the day, with the doors closed, the barn appears solid and homogenous; at night, when lit from within, the diaphanous facade glows warmly. A further dramatic transformation comes when the full height doors are opened and the seemingly introverted building becomes very porous, allowing activities to spill out into the landscape around.