Inspired, Nicolas Tye: Nicolas Tye Architects

The opportunity to design your own architectural office in the middle of a field is the kind of chance that does not come along very often, even for an architect, but we took this opportunity and made it an award-winning piece. As you study the building you can’t help but realise where the architecture is coming from, investigating the ideologies of ‘cabins’, ‘huts’, ‘camps’ and ‘nature-inspired design’.

The Long Barn Studio is simplicity itself – an elegant glass rectilinear box with punctuating timber-clad cubes that magically float into the building, with its materiality running seamlessly from outside to inside. The floating floor and ceiling provide further strong horizontal layers in this horizontally driven piece of modern architecture, which echoes the surrounding landscape.

I studied simple Scandinavian cabins which adapt to the seasons’ differing environments, inspired by nature, integrated into site and context. This formulated the studio design to be dominated by natural products and healthy materials, namely timber and stone, providing a stance that resonated with the adjacent ancient historic barn. This project is a careful play on a cabin in the middle of nowhere, a concept that provided the inspiration.

Who would not want to work here?