On the Isle of Wight, Gianni Botsford Architects have transformed two redundant farm buildings into an armature for domestic life and artistic activityThis project was highly commended in the 2024 AR House awards. Read about the full shortlist hereEngland in miniature is a muchquoted epithet to describe the Isle of Wight, as if all the eccentricity and tumult of that green and pleasant land could somehow be distilled down to an island in the English Channel. In some ways, however, the Isle of Wight does neatly embody the English sociocultural spectrum, from royalty to old lags.It is impossible to imagine a prettier spot, said Queen Victoria of Osborne, her beloved Italianate palazzo, expressly designed to remind Prince Albert of the Bay of Naples. At the less rarefied end of things is HMP Isle of Wight, one of the largest mens prisons in the country. When it was first founded in the Victorian era, the island locale was doubtless chosen to deter escape attempts, like an English Alcatraz.Between these two extremes is a disparate stratum of activities and enterprises: farming, industry, shipyards, sailing (Cowes Week in August hosts one of the worlds oldest regattas), the summer bacchanal of the Isle of Wight Festival (graced by Jimi Hendrix among others back in the day) and more general, genteel tourism. Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight if its not too dear, chirped the Beatles in When Im SixtyFour.Poised just off the southern coast of England, the island luxuriates in a balmy, temperate climate, hence its enduring popularity with holidaymakers. From its more elevated terrain there are thrilling views over the Solent to the hulking, terra cognita of the mainland to the north, though some born and bred islanders never feel the need to make the halfhour crossing in their lifetimes. Perhaps they have a point; after all, they have England in miniature.Joseph Kohlmaier, the client for the Old Byre, has lived predominantly on the Isle of Wight for 17 years. As an artist, performer and associate professor at a London art school, he divides his time between London and the more bucolic milieu of the island. Changes in family circumstances prompted a move, with Kohlmaier spotting a cluster of disused farm buildings for sale just outside West Cowes on a ridge amid acres of pasture.He saw their potential and pounced, commissioning Londonbased Gianni Botsford Architects to remodel two of the buildings to serve not only as a home, but also as a residency and workspace for visiting artists, which Kohlmaier now coowns with economist and art collector Simon Bishop. Conjoined both spatially and socially, and further cemented by a common formal and material language, the domestic realm supports and stimulates the artistic, and vice versa.Embodying a rural bleakness and anomie straight out of Cold Comfort Farm, the monochrome before shots of the Old Byre record a clutch of dilapidated structures, ivy making inroads, machinery left abandoned, and everywhere, the claggy, residual muck of farm life. An ancient, castiron weathercock glumly surveys this decaying arcadia.The weathercock is still there, but its view has been palpably transformed. Two rejuvenated barn buildings enclose a slightly sunken courtyard, where cows were once herded in and out. Animals used to live here, says Kohlmaier. Now humans do. The sense of decrepitude has been supplanted by an invigorating crispness and lightness, the basic geometries of the barns as long, low volumes still legible, yet pulled into sharper, more refined focus.Yet the scheme is no romantic paean to rusticity. Taking its cues from the quasiindustrial language and materials of a working farm, it is consciously hardedged. Even the courtyard, now scraped clean of muck, has a kind of tough, wild grandeur. Tangles of impromptu foliage erupt from cracks in the concrete surface, the result of Kohlmaiers experiments with guerrilla gardening. I let seeds drift in naturally to see what happens, he says. Its a different weed display every year.Prioritising retention over demolition, the project preserves and consolidates the two barns through a series of deft, lighttouch moves. On the noncourtyard sides, the existing brick walls are wrapped in corrugated fibrecement board, a quotidian material commonly used in agricultural and industrial buildings. On the courtyard sides, a milky translucent and highly insulated new polycarbonate facade is punctuated by large, glazed aluminium doors which afford individual entrances to each of the living and workspaces. After dark, the polycarbonate glows with the soft, seductive intensity of a Japanese shoji screen, hinting at comings and goings within.Originally established in the 18th century, the farm grew and changed over time, and its architecture assumed an accretional, ad hoc quality. Today it comprises a series of mainly singlestorey structures tacked on to one other, like slightly dissipated drunks, amiably coexisting. A gallimaufry of stone, slate, brick, timber, clay tiles and polycarbonate sheeting charts the historical relationship between rural buildings and materials through the ages.The scheme is no romantic paean torusticity it is consciously hardedgedDating from the 19th and 20th centuries, the two barns are purposely disconnected, as Botsford puts it. Daily routine is animated by people nipping across the courtyard, from one volume to another, shuttling between private and social spaces through the cool morning air, rain and summer heat. Perhaps there is another Japanese precedent at work in the form of Tadao Andos 1976 Azuma House in Osaka, famously composed of two discrete volumes separated by a courtyard, inviting (or obliging) inhabitants to reconnect with the elemental forces of nature.The smaller and more recent structure has been remodelled as a single volume for communal living, dining and cooking under the original steelframed monopitch roof that gently swoops upwards towards the courtyard. On the noncourtyard side, a glazed door frames a view between adjacent farm buildings to rented pasture, where sheep are still grazed. In the distance, a vast panoramic sweep of landscape unfurls around the estuary of the River Medina, which cleaves the island in two.Configured on an Lshaped plan, the larger 19thcentury barn now forms a housewithinahouse for artists and other visitors. A series of bedrooms and studios are set within the inner, courtyard edge of the plan, fabricated from panels of spruce plywood. Tempered and modulated by fullheight doors without conventional handles or locks, these are more private, intimate enclaves, the effect rather like being cosseted in a cosy plywood cocoon.Each has its own door into the courtyard, but they are also linked, like beads on a chain, by what Botsford describes as a back alley extending along the long side of the plan. A concrete plinth supports the new polycarbonate facade, frames the courtyard and extends into the interior, providing the connecting ground for the transformation within.Brick walls, which have avisually delectable friability, are left bare, and roof structures are largely untouchedThroughout, the intention has been to retain, clean and expose the existing building fabric and simply let things speak for themselves. Brick walls, which have a visually delectable friability, are left bare, and roof structures are largely untouched. Especially evocative of the art of construction and the passage of time, the 19thcentury timber trusses bear their original carpenters marks. Aside from the plywood insertions, the only significant modification is the addition of new polished concrete floors with underfloor heating, an eminently practical response to the challenge of tempering the internal environment.For all the projects preserved distress and imperfect rawness, there is no attempt to impose a forced aesthetic; even in their restored states, the two barns are virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding farm buildings. Rather, the architecture has an empathic ease and generosity that establishes an armature for activities and encounters.As Botsford writes of the project, The archetypes that animate the design are the piazza, the archive, the sound of work and industry, the demand of the environment, the social, the sharing of food, and care. In the shadows of past lives, within the subtly revivified shells of ageing and disregarded buildings, a new narrative of artistic production amid the daily rhythm of domestic life quietly unfolds.Aerial photograph: James Eagle2024-12-11Catherine SlessorShare AR December 2024/January 2025Good rooms + AR HouseBuy Now