Waltham PlacE farm

Project Description

CSK Architects have secured planning approval for an innovative live/work/grow typology at Waltham Place Farm in Berkshire. We have called this new typology, New Model Barn. Consent was approved on the basis of the building being an environmental exemplar for the borough taking a holistic approach to the whole building life cycle.

New Model Barn comprises five residential units for farm workers , four field kitchens to process meat, grains, fruit and dairy, with a communal social and growing space at the heart of the building. While the project reimagines a traditional barn’s structure and function, it strongly adheres to the farm's biodynamic and organic principles of self-sustaining systems. The planned building materials include hempcrete derived from hemp grown and processed on the farm, a timber frame, wood fibre , a limecrete floor and rubble trench foundations.

The project maximises on-site resources, orienting itself to efficiently collect rainwater and solar energy, integrating ground source heat pumps, passive ventilation and shading for optimal indoor conditions. New Model Barn achieved permission under very special circumstances in the Green Belt with unanimous support from the RBWM committee and Southeast Design Review Panel.

Learning and growing from these wider earthly cycles, the edifice emerges, embodying an adaptive architecture that challenges how we live, work, and grow. Suddenly, traditional construction and inhabitation fades, revealing a carefully curated, self-sustaining space.