Balancing Barn | MVRDV

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Balancing Barn | MVRDV

Information

  • Project Name: Balancing Barn
  • Practice: MVRDV
  • Products: Reynaers
  • Completion year: 2010
  • Gross Built up Area: 210 sqm
  • Project Location: Suffolk
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Design Team: Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries with Frans de Witte and Gijs Rikken
  • Structural Consultants: Jane Wernick associates
  • Landscape Consultants: The Landscape Partnership
  • Interior + Furniture: Studio Makkink & Bey
  • Photo Credits: Gijs Rikken
  • Others: Co-architect: Mole architects
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Excerpt: Balancing Barn is a residence designed by the architectural firm MVRDV. The Barn responds through its architecture and engineering to the site condition and natural setting. The traditional barn shape and reflective metal sheeting take their references from the local building vernacular. In this sense, the Balancing Barn aims to live up to its educational goal of re-evaluating the countryside and making modern architecture accessible. Additionally, it is both a restful and exciting holiday home.

Project Description

[Text as submitted by Architect] Balancing Barn is situated on a beautiful site by a small lake in the English countryside near Thorington in Suffolk. The Barn responds through its architecture and engineering to the site condition and natural setting. The traditional barn shape and reflective metal sheeting take their references from the local building vernacular. In this sense, the Balancing Barn aims to live up to its educational goal of re-evaluating the countryside and making modern architecture accessible. Additionally, it is both a restful and exciting holiday home. Furnished to a high standard of comfort and elegance, set in a quintessentially English landscape, it engages its temporary inhabitants in an experience.

balancing_barn

Approaching the 300-meter driveway, Balancing Barn looks like a small, two-person house.  When visitors reach the end of the track, they suddenly experience the length of the volume and the cantilever. The Barn is 30 meters long, with a 15 meters cantilever over a slope, plunging the house headlong into nature. The reason for this spectacular setting is the linear experience of nature. As the site slopes and the landscape with it, the visitor experiences nature first at ground level and ultimately at tree height. The linear structure provides the stage for a changing outdoor experience. 

Balancing Barn | MVRDV
© MVRDV
Balancing Barn | MVRDV
© Gijs Rikken

At the midpoint, the Barn starts to cantilever over the descending slope, a balancing act made possible by the rigid structure of the building, resulting in 50% of the Barn being in free space. The structure balances on a central concrete core, with the section on the ground constructed from heavier materials than the cantilevered section. The long sides of the structure are well concealed by trees, offering privacy inside and around the Barn. 

Balancing Barn | MVRDV
© MVRDV
Balancing Barn | MVRDV
© Gijs Rikken

The exterior is covered in reflective metal sheeting, which, like the pitched roof, takes its references from the local building vernacular and reflects the surrounding nature and changing seasons.

Balancing Barn | MVRDV
© Gijs Rikken

On entering the Barn, one steps into a kitchen and a large dining room.  A series of four double bedrooms, each with a separate bathroom and toilet. In the very centre of the Barn, the bedroom sequence is interrupted by a hidden staircase providing access to the garden beneath. In the far, cantilevered end of the Barn is a large living space with windows on three walls, floor and ceiling. The addition of a fireplace makes it possible to experience all four elements on a rainy day. Full height sliding windows and roof lights throughout the house ensure continuous views of, access to and connectivity with nature. 

Balancing Barn | MVRDV
© Gijs Rikken
Balancing Barn | MVRDV
© Gijs Rikken

The interior is based on two main objectives: 

– The house is an archetypical two-person home, expanded in shape and content so that it can equally comfortably accommodate eight. Two will not feel lost in the space, and a group of eight will not feel too cramped. 

– A neutral, timeless timber is the backdrop for the interior, in which Studio Makkink & Bey have created a range of furnishings that reflect the design concept of the Barn. 

Balancing Barn | MVRDV
© Gijs Rikken

The rooms are themed. Partly pixilated and enlarged cloud studies by John Constable and country scenes by Thomas Gainsborough are used as connecting elements between the past and contemporary Britain, like carpets, wallpapers and mounted textile wall elements. The crockery comprises a set of English classics for two, and a modern series for a further six guests, making an endless series of combinations possible and adding the character of a private residence to the home.

Balancing Barn | MVRDV
© Gijs Rikken

The Barn is highly insulated, ventilated by a heat recovery system, and warmed by a ground source heat pump, resulting in a highly energy-efficient building.

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