Ranch House Conversion | Big Barn | Glen Ellen | California |Faulkner Architects

A San Francisco family of four asked us to create a retreat from their urban lifestyle, reusing the footprint of an existing 1950s ranch house in Glen Ellen, California, while building in a consistent way with the area’s rolling hills and agricultural structures.

Glen Ellen has many barn-like houses that confusingly mash up two design vocabularies, pasting residential-style overhangs and fenestration on barn forms in a kitschy blend. In contrast, this 3,900-square-foot house, dubbed the “Big Barn,” draws authentic inspiration from the site’s existing Tack Barn, which we had previously renovated into a bunk house. A simple, rectangular, two-story form emerged with an asymmetrical gabled roof. The shorter side of the roof faces the southwest sun and reduces heat gain to the structure. Fenestration is limited to this exposure as well and is organized as thin, full-height ventilation shutters that reference traditional barn building.

The entry, a larger version of the vertical slit elements, is recessed for shading. The fireplace and chimney, foreign to the barn typology, are displaced from the structure with glazed joints. The east side is more open to the view and morning sun.....more

Farmhouse Re-modelling | Knowlton Residence | Quebec | TBA

Located in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, Knowlton Residence contrasts simple forms with vernacular materials to update an aging country farmhouse. In response to the client’s desire to enlarge and covert the existing country house into their primary residence, the gable roofed structure has been completely renovated with a new two storey extension built upon the foundations of a previous single storey addition. Going up instead of spreading out allowed for more space and better views without the need to excavate across the hilltop. The box shaped extension plays off the familiar farmhouse typology, creating a series of intriguing contrasts between the thisness and thatness of the composition, both distinguishing and uniting different eras, forms, and materials.....more

Barn Conversion | Guest House | Catskills | New York | General Assembly

General Assembly reimagined an old horse barn, rebuilding it to become a one of a kind guest house. Wood cladding throughout creates a warm atmosphere, while clean white walls cut through the space to keep things light and create a unifying band of contrast.

We used patterned concrete tile throughout to separate and define key areas. The wood burning stove is surrounded by terracotta colored concrete tile of our own custom design, while the bedrooms are defined by high contrast black and white tile and kept cozy with in-ground heating.

Re-using as much of the original barn as possible, we refinished the existing horse stall doors by blackening the steel and inserting obscured glass to create unique bedroom doors

Finally, we opened up the front of the barn by tearing out the facade and replacing it with a twelve and a half foot wide Nanawall door, connecting the landscape to the warm interior........more

Barn House | Balir Barn House | Blair | Wisconsin | Alchemy Architects

Imagine a house that took all the great things about barns and left those other things to the cows? Alchemy designed a house that takes all its clues from the 19th century but updates them for the 21st Century Featuring Barn siding with light filtering through a Few, but large openings, a sleeping loft and bedrooms in the cellar. And, of course, Barn Space an open 2-story room with two volumes inserted within. One in steel, the other in ash strips, they provide under-and over spaces like a hayloft.........more

House In Geldrmalsen | Netherlands | Maxwan

Our clients had bought an old barn on a beautiful 2ha site bordering the river Linge. We were asked to help realize their dream of a large kitchen living room where they could relax, entertain friends and organize wine tasting sessions for their customers.
In the past, the previous owners had already realized an extension by simply extruding the high barn, adding 10 meters, in two floors.
At our first visit we found the house difficult to inhabit. Most strikingly, virtually no relation existed to the beautiful landscape surrounding the house. All façade openings were too small, in the wrong place, or both. We proposed to invert the layout of the house, moving the offices and storage space to occupy the recent extension and the private spaces to the old barn. A large slit was cut into the barn roof to bring in light. The final touch was a large piece of furniture that would serve as kitchen, storage, stairs and library all at once.......more

Modern Barn | Inverness California | Gustav Carlson Design

This sustainable eco friendly house on 3 acres gently unfold into the landscape with a form conducive to passive solar design. The power coated transom windows offer air circulation and ventilation. The large eaves and outdoor room spaces, such as covered porches and decking bleed into the landscape.....more

Midwest Retreat Barn,Iowa, USA | BNIM

Rural Iowa
6,000 gross square feet
3 car garage
700 acres
Completion: 2010
The retreat is located on a bucolic 700-acre site in the rolling hills of rural Iowa. The property orginally contained a mix of prairie, woodland and former farmland. With assistance from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the owner has restored much of the fallow farmland and non-native woodlands back to its native prairie ecology. The building is approached from the south, by way of an existing gravel drive that traverses this prairie and woodland habitat. The retreat is sited in an existing clearing, and is surrounded by restored prairie that is allowed to grow up to the building's perimeter. With its siting in this clearing, as well as its form and materiality, the building echoes the agrarian typologies of the region. The building is elongated in an east/west direction in order to maximize daylight control and to highlight views of the pond to the east and the lone tree to the west.
The retreat was designed as a venue for both social and business gatherings. Because of this dual use, the programmatic relationships and requirements depart in subtle but important ways from that of a typical residence. The functional parti clearly separates the social spaces in the continuously-gabled wood volume above from the support spaces in the concrete box below. In addition to creating a clear separation of support and social spaces, locating primary gathering areas on the second floor provides access to views and increased opportunity for natural ventilation. At the functional heart of this second floor space is a large, flexible open area bordered by three fixed functional elements: a low kitchen, a large hearth and an antique bar previously acquired by the client. These key components provide definition to the space and support its range of social activities....more