Located in the county of Suffolk, Long Farm is a three-storey family residence clad in a mixture of regional materials that includes terracotta roof tiles, lime mortar and timber details.

"We wanted to make a building that belonged on the site," says Lucy Marston. "Familiar building elements and materials were carefully composed to create a house that is clearly of its time, but with an identity firmly routed in its locale. It was intended to be immediately recognisable as a Suffolk house that feels at home on the farm."

Skylights are lined up along both sides of the roof, while large windows cover all four elevations, allowing light to filter into the house at different times of day.

A similar materials palette continues through the interior. Martson explains: "Whitewashed brickwork, painted timber linings and exposed ceiling beams were used to give honest depth, texture and character to a modern interior."

The client works as a writer and requested quiet spaces for working as well as larger areas for entertaining guests or spending time as a family.

Marston thus added a a series of rooms on the ground floor that can be opened out to create a large living room or subdivided to create a "snug", a reading room and a playroom for the children. There's also a study across the corridor.

A large kitchen is located at the opposite end of this floor and features a dining table that can seat up to ten people, as well as a traditional farmhouse sink and a double stove.

Four bedrooms occupy the first floor and include two master bedrooms with private bathrooms, plus a pair of children's rooms that can be combined to form one large room.

"The clients wanted to build a simple, modest building that would adapt to accommodate them as the family developed," says the architect.

Other rural English houses featured on Dezeen include a converted stable block in Hampshire and a stone house on the Isle of Man. See more houses in the UK.

Photography is by Jack Hobhouse.

Here's the full project description from Lucy Marston:

Long Farm, Suffolk

Long Farm is a new family home in rural Suffolk, England. The house sits high among a group of existing farm buildings, facing east across salt marshes and open fields, towards the sea.

We wanted to make a building that 'belonged' on the site and so the design emerged from its context. The steeply pitched roof and linear form were influenced by the traditional 'long house' form that can be seen throughout that part of the country.

Familiar building elements and materials - a corner chimney, brick and lime mortar, teracotta tiles and timber - were carefully composed to create a house that is clearly of its time, but with an identity firmly routed in its locale. It was intended to be immediately recognisable as a Suffolk house that feels at home on the farm.

Capturing the unique views around the house, in all directions was key. From the dawn in the east over the sea to sunset over the reed beds to the far west, windows and rooflights were placed precisely to track the sun and and views throughout the course of the day. Windows were kept large to frame dramatic views, but balanced with the occupants' domestic desire for enclosure, privacy and warmth.

Internally, the vernacular references continue: a super-sized inglenook in the sitting room, a generous hall and landing that almost become rooms, window sills deep enough to sit in and a 'farmhouse kitchen' arranged around a large family table. Whitewashed brickwork, painted timber linings and exposed ceiling beams were used to give honest depth, texture and character to a modern interior.

The house was designed to accommodate a family of four with guests, with room for different age groups to carry out activities in different parts of the house.

As a writer with young children, the client had conflicting requirements, requiring solitude in order to work and also sociable interlinked spaces for the everyday bustle of sociable family life and frequent visitors.

The plan, an update of the traditional single room depth long house layout, was developed as a series of smaller rooms with their own identities (a playroom, a reading room, a snug).

These can be closed off and used separately with access via the hall or opened up with sliding doors to create a more fluid semi-open plan space. Likewise the childrens' bedrooms can be opened up to form one big room or closed off for privacy.

The clients wanted to build a simple, modest building that would adapt to accommodate them as the family developed. They also wanted a building that would weather well, would require little or no maintenance and minimal energy to run.

At Long Farm, we aimed to make a building that was not only robust and flexible enough to age well over time, but one that aimed to be sustainable long term in an aesthetic sense, that had a timeless or 'classic' quality to it.

Landscape Consultant: Marie Clarke, Clarke Associates
Structural Engineer: David Cantrill, JP Chick and Partners
Contractor: Robert Norman Construction

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Lucy Marston appeared first on Dezeen.

Following their earlier refit of Hostem's shop floor, James Russell and Hannah Plumb were asked to redesign the shop's subterranean level to provide a quieter space for displaying the brand's most important collections.

"We wanted the space to be different from upstairs: a discreet addition for the store's most cherished goods," Russell told Dezeen. "We opened the space up, painted it dark and dimmed the lighting; this created a calmness by making the corners and edges of walls disappear."

The designers added a few unique furniture pieces for displaying different garments and accessories. These include a wardrobe that appears to be collapsing and a Chesterfield sofa with a table growing out of its centre.

"Our work often starts with things we love that are broken and damaged," explains Russell. "When we found the sofa it had no seat and was just this filthy rotten leather, but we didn't want to just reupholster it into another Chesterfield, we wanted to celebrate it."

Other furniture pieces include a Wurlitzer harp case converted into a display case for a single garment and an old crate formerly used for the transportation of pigs. There's also a fitting room, screened behind a thick layer of draped fabric.

The Chalk Room is currently dedicated to Hostem's bespoke service, which provides made to measure clothing and accessories, but shoppers can also order furniture by JamesPlumb. This includes chests of drawers made from stacks of suitcases and chandeliers made from clusters of antique lampshades.

JamesPlumb designed the original interior for Hostem in 2010. The project won the retail category at the inaugural Inside awards and Dezeen interviewed Russell and Plumb about their design as part of the event.

See more design by JamesPlumb, including the brand's most recent collection.

Here are a few words from JamesPlumb:

The Chalk Room by JamesPlumb
Bespoke Menswear Store Redchurch Street, London

JAMESPLUMB created this discreet addition to their award winning interior design for menswear store Hostem in East London.

Briefed to create an environment to celebrate the craft and skill of the store's most cherished designers, they created a quietly removed space, downstairs from the main showroom.

A brand new collection of one off assemblage form the perfect theatrical showcase - including an antique Wurlitzer harp case transformed into a wardrobe for a single garment, a weather worn Chesterfield married with a table, and a crate formerly used for carrying pedigree pigs, that now presents handmade footwear.

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Currently under construction in the north-west corner of the British Museum's Bloomsbury quadrangle, the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre will provide new galleries, storage facilites and conservation studios within a nine-storey structure conceived as a cluster of pavilions.

Referencing both the nineteenth and twentieth century architecture of the museum, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners designed a steel-framed building clad with a mixture of stone and glass. The height of the roof will align with the eaves of the existing building, while three of the storeys are to be buried underground.

The Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery will occupy the ground floor of the new building and will be accessed via the north side of the Norman Foster-designed Great Court. The column-free rectangular gallery will feature a large door to allow access for larger exhibits, as well as a series of floor-to-ceiling windows that can be easily screened to protect light-sensitive objects. The space could also be subdivided to house smaller exhibitions.

Other floors of the building will be dedicated to conservation of the museum's collection. The uppermost floor will contain top-lit studios for working with smaller artefacts, such as metal, glass or ceramic objects, while additional laboratories and offices will surround a two-storey atrium in the lower levels of the building and will be used for examining larger objects.

The three basement floors will function as a storage and lending hub for over 200,000 items. Each floor will contain a study room, plus a 16-metre truck lift will allow items to be transported in and out of the building.

"The World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre represents a vitally important combination of a purpose-built exhibition gallery and a celebration of the amazing behind-the-scenes activities," said architect Graham Stirk. "These facilities will be contained in a bespoke twenty-first century building that provides the next stage of the museum's evolution."

The World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre will complete in March 2014 and the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery is scheduled to open with an exhibition dedicated to the Vikings.

London firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) is led by Richard Rogers in partnership with Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour. Other recent projects by the firm in London include the NEO Bankside apartment blocks beside the Tate Modern art gallery and a fabric walkway over the roof of the O2 Arena. See more architecture by RSHP on Dezeen.

Here's an update from the British Museum:

British Museum celebrates progress on the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre development

With less than a year to go until the first exhibition opens in the new exhibitions gallery, the British Museum today reveals the extent of progress on the construction of its new capital project, the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre (WCEC). Designed by Rogers, Stirk, Harbour + Partners (RSHP) and constructed by Mace, the new Centre will cement the British Museum's reputation as a world leader in the exhibition, conservation, examination and analysis of cultural objects from across the globe. The WCEC will enable the Museum to build on current successes, to store, conserve, study and display the collection for the future.

Located in the north-west corner of the Museum's Bloomsbury estate, the WCEC is one of the largest redevelopment projects in the Museum's 260 year history. The Centre will provide a new public exhibitions gallery, state-of-the-art laboratories and studios, world class stores for the collection, as well as facilities to support an extensive UK and international loan programme. This will rationalise and greatly improve the Museum's operations on-site, and modernise facilities 'behind the scenes'. These will allow the Museum to extend support to our UK and International partners in terms of increasing capacity for staff training and joint projects.

The building consists of five pavilions (one of which is sunk into the ground) and the design is sensitive to the British Museum's existing architecture, connecting to the historic building whilst maintaining its own identity. The exhibitions gallery is due to open in early March 2014 with a new exhibition devoted to the Vikings (supported by BP). It is anticipated the conservation studios, science laboratories, loans hub and stores will be fitted out and occupied by summer 2014.

The total cost of the project is £135 million. The Linbury Trust, established by John Sainsbury (Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover KG), and the Monument Trust, established by Simon Sainsbury have together committed £25 million towards the project, one of the largest gifts to the arts in the UK in recent decades, which will be used to fund the exhibition gallery. The Heritage Lottery Fund has committed £10 million towards the project. Other significant benefactors include the Wolfson Foundation, the Garfield Weston Foundation, the A.G. Leventis Foundation and the family of Constantine Leventis, the Clothworkers' Foundation, the Fidelity U.K. Foundation, Sir Siegmund Warburg's Voluntary Settlement, the Band Trust and others as well as continued support from the Department for Culture Media and Sport (worth £22.5 million over 4 years). A fundraising campaign from the British Museum Members is underway.

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by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners appeared first on Dezeen.

The North London Hospice was designed to provide support and treatment for patients with a life-limiting or terminal illness, within a less clinical environment than a hospital ward.

"We wanted to give the building a domestic quality," AHMM's Paul Monaghan told Dezeen. "This is a healthcare building that does not feel institutional or clinical. And this was the aspiration, that people feel at home in this building."

The architects added a pale brick to give a uniform appearance to the exterior walls. "Brick, of course, has strong associations with the idea of a home," added Monaghan. "Its use also enabled us to blend in with the adjacent suburban semi-detached houses, although its lighter tone was intended to subtly highlight the building's public nature."

The main volume of the structure comprises two prominent gables, both three storeys in height, while a single-storey extension accommodates extra rooms at the rear and frames a south-facing courtyard.

Visitors arrive through an entrance on the eastern facade. There's no reception, to avoid the feel of an institution, so this route leads directly to an informal lounge at the heart of the building.

From here, visitors can walk through to a daycare room at the back of the building, or find their way to treatment rooms on either of the two lower floors.

A kitchen and dining room is located within the second gable on the western side of the building and opens out to the private courtyard.

North London Hospice is the latest in a string of domestic buildings designed for patient care, following a number of Maggie's cancer-care centres to complete in recent years. See more stories about healthcare buildings.

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris is best-known for its Stirling Prize-nominated Angel Building and Westminster Academy, also both in London. See more London architecture on Dezeen.

Photography is by Tim Soar.

Here's a project description from AHMM:

North London Hospice

The North London Hospice provides a new uplifting base for the North London Hospice charity that incorporates a range of new services and encourages patients to drop-in for a chat, join in creative therapies, undergo treatments or simply relieve their carers.

Completed in May 2012, the building fulfils the aspiration to increase the provision of palliative care in Enfield in a contemporary, beautiful and non-clinical environment. Over the course of three years the client, architect, design team and user group worked closely to develop a brief and building that meets and exceeds patient needs by creating a special place for them in the heart of their community.

Set in a suburban residential area of north London, the building form is that of an overscale house – utilising pitched roofs and traditional brick construction. Located on a prominent corner, the two north facing gables form the main accommodation linked by circulation spaces and a single storey extension to the rear.

A generous entrance canopy receives visitors into a meet-and-greet space, leading through to a large multi-purpose daycare room and open plan kitchen and café area which frame a south facing courtyard. Smaller rooms for creative therapies, a hairdresser, and rest room support the key ground floor spaces. The first floor houses clinical, interview and teaching activities, with the pitched second floor providing flexible administrative facilities. All the upper rooms have generous views overlooking allotments to the south and playing fields to the north.

It was important to both the client and architect that the building felt light and airy and created a domestic sense of wellbeing so as to avoid any negative institutional connotations. The simple palette of brick and timber and muted colours all contribute to a calm and gentle environment for patients and carers.

Client: North London Hospice
Client Representative: Procore Project Solutions Ltd
Architect: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
Main Contractor: Pavehall Plc

Landscape Architect: BB UK
Quantity Surveyor: Equals Cost Consultancy
Structural/Civil Engineer: Elliott Wood Partnership LLP
Services Engineer: Atelier Ten

CDM Coordinator: Total CDM
Landscape Contractor: Gavin Jones Group
Acoustic Consultant: Paul Gillieron Acoustic Design
Ecological Consultant: John Wenman Ecological Consultancy LLP
Highways/Traffic Consultants: JMP Consultants
Approved Inspector: Guy Shattock Associates

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Allford Hall Monaghan Morris appeared first on Dezeen.

Above: photograph is by Bryony Henderson

Named Ecology of Colour, the two-storey building has a gabled timber structure with walls and windows that hinge open on three different sides.

An indoor space is contained within the cantilevered first floor, designed to accommodate different activities. Birdwatchers hide behind the shutters during quiet periods to spy on the wildlife, while at other times dying workshops will take place to promote the use of natural dyes found in native planting.

A sheltered outdoor area is positioned directly beneath at ground floor level, providing additional workshop space for messy activities or protecting visitors to the park in wet weather.

Studio Weave collaborated with graphic designers Nous Vous to design the cabin's colourful facade. The gridded pattern, entitled Joy, covers 144 timber cladding panels and was painted by local residents using organic paints.

"The pattern was a very intuitive response to a grid and it was this spontaneity with regard to form and colour that I hoped would bring across a sense of joy," says Will Edmonds from Nous Vous.

Esme Fieldhouse from Studio Weave added: "The wood will be left to weather. The colours will stay bright for two to four years and then gradually fade as the timber silvers, allowing the building to age gracefully as it nestles into its surroundings."

The architects have also teamed up with a horticulturist, who is installing a garden around the building that will yield natural dyes.

Studio Weave was founded by architects Je Ahn and Maria Smith. The studio's past projects include Paleys upon Pilers, a timber-framed structure that marked a route to the Olympic Park, and the Lullaby Factory, a network of listening pipes at a children's hospital.

Dezeen interviewed Ahn and Smith at our Designed in Hackney Day last summer. Watch the movie or see all our stories about Studio Weave.

Above: photograph by Benedict Johnson

Photography is by Jim Stephenson, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here's some more information by the architects:

Multi-award winning, art and architecture practice Studio Weave celebrate the possibilities offered by natural dyes through the creation of The Ecology of Colour – a beautiful timber, hand-painted building located on the Ecology Island in Dartford's Central Park.

The Ecology of Colour is the third Artlands public realm commission for North Kent and responds to the charming site known as Ecology Island, a magical, wild, wooded peninsula hidden at the very heart of Dartford's Central Park and is dedicated to the study of the natural environment within an urban context.

In response to this unique context, Studio Weave have designed a small versatile building with a semi-outdoor space at ground level and an enclosed area on the first floor with shutters of various sizes to allow for hidden bird watching. As well as a bird hide and art studio the building will be used as an outdoor classroom, a dyeing workshop and simply as a rain shelter within the Ecology Island.

The building unashamedly celebrates colour and Studio Weave have collaborated with designers Nous Vous who have created a bold, cohesive graphic visual language for the exterior of the structure. Prior to its installation, a team of local residents and artists worked together in a painting workshop to produce each of the 144 panels, which form the external cladding.

In tandem with the design of The Ecology of Colour, Studio Weave have worked in collaboration with a horticulturalist to design a garden that will yield natural dyes. The planting scheme, which will be installed next spring, predominantly includes traditional plants native to the south of England such as Golden Rod which produces a magnificent yellow, Alder known for its vibrant red and Bugloss whose roots produce a mesmerizing blue.

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