Coppin Dockray has transformed house and studio consisting of two buildings that total 171m² (1,841ft²) in rural Wiltshire, England. The first building is a 1960’s one-bedroom house, designed by David Levitt. The second one is a studio and garage, designed by Peter and Alison Smithson in ’70s. Built for little over £1,400/m² ($1.65/ft²) in 2015, the Ansty Plum House and Studio have reduced its energy use by about 80%.
In the grounds of the Ansty Plum house sits a small fortress like building designed by Peter and Alison Smithson as a hide-out for the client’s children. This derelict building has been given a new lease of life with an environmental retrofit and extension.
The derelict studio building had suffered structural failure and decay. Water was coming in from every angle. Originally designed as an outhouse, a place that you might go wearing wellies, this building had never been insulated and was rotting.
The building was tanked, ground drains re-built and a new zinc roof added. The walls, floor and roof were insulated behind warm douglas fir linings designed with a nod to the Smithson’s original design.
An extension was added to allow the construction of a shower room, hedged into a mossy bank of mature ferns. The building retains its bunker-like personality, but is now warm, dry and comfortable.
— Coppin Dockray
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Photographs by Brotherton Lock & Rachael Smith
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