Set deep in the South Antrim countryside, the site presently consists of a farmhouse and outbuildings surrounded by open fields, hedgerows and mature copses.  The clients, a Psychotherapist and Farmer, are a couple in the process of diversifying their farm to provide a holistic well–being retreat.  To this end, our brief was for a new building with spaces designed to house small, bespoke yoga and Pilates classes and a psychotherapy room above with distant views towards Lough Neagh and the Sperrin Mountains.  Included in the project is the proposed conversion of an existing outbuilding as a pottery workshop. 

The new building is conceived as a curious yet familiar form in the rural setting, somewhere between the domestic and the agricultural, yet neither.  Sited to be included within the existing cluster of farm dwelling and outbuildings, an external intimate yard between existing and new is created. Formal references to neighbouring farmsteads and the typical patterns of small vernacular farms are made as well as to the small Georgian pattern book dwellings found in the wider region (Of particular interest was Mill Cottage, Killough, the home house of one of our team).

As a space specifically designed for yoga, therapy and contemplation, it was important that the building gained controlled early morning light from the east and incorporated the setting of the sun to the west.  A separate pedestrian pathway is designed as part of the visitor experience, with any required parking positioned discreetly behind existing field hedgerows and new planting to the east of the site. Visitors then walk to the building via a series of hedgerow ‘thresholds’ and ‘edges’ in preparation for the activities within..