Barrow House Nestled In The Lincolnshire Wolds Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty

This stunning, Barrow House by ID Architecture partially underground private residence has won a number of major prizes, including the renowned Grand Designs House of the Year Longlist 2021.

Barrow House is situated in a rural environment, surrounded by floral fields and overlooking a large private pond. The barn is modest in size and simple in form from the outside, carefully designed to resemble a brick and pantile barn, adopting the agricultural language of the area, while the living spaces are superbly connected to the extensive views over the Lincolnshire Wolds and towards the Bonze Age Barrow from the inside. It is one of Lincolnshire's largest 'round barrows,' measuring 30 meters broad and three meters high.

The new family came to ID Architecture with this formerly farmed arable property in the open countryside in order to build a family house for their young family. The beautiful open-valley setting necessitated a Paragraph 55 (now P80), which necessitated substantial engagement and collaboration with the Planners, local community, and other stakeholders. These sorts of applications need a level of inventiveness, remarkable quality, and sensitivity in the design that may be deemed to truly benefit their neighborhood. A difficult brief in a location of extraordinary natural beauty, especially so near to the Barrow, a designated ancient monument.

It was dubbed a "worthy and outstanding winner" of the prize at the grand final of the 2019 LABC National Building Excellence Awards in December, and it boasts 18-metre-long sliding doors and a projecting master bedroom pod with views of the natural countryside and Bronze-Age Barrow. The basic above-ground barn shape is faithful to the agricultural aesthetic of the area and was made with sturdy steel cladding, which was supposed to progressively rust, becoming orange then brown as it was exposed to the weather.

This construction lies on a semi-subterranean concrete foundation that forms the ground floor entrance level, with a wildflower-planted flat roof that continues and connects to the surrounding meadow. An large landscaping design, local orchard planting, wildflower meadows, and new tree planting all contribute to the creation of a residence that is delicately immersed within the terrain, reintroducing the sort of rolling meadow that was previously abundant in the Wolds.

The modest shapes and relevance of the environment that identifies Barrow House within its context were further highlighted by simple yet sharp details.

Photographs by Andy Haslam.