Natural Bridges

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In 2019, New British Design were tasked with the design of a woodland pavilion in Cornwall to add additional accommodation to an existing holiday business. A year previous, the site was featured on TV show Grand Designs in which our clients, Harry and Briony, completed their own home. It was inspired by the 1987 film Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, and the modernist architecture it featured amongst Illinois woodland. Notably, James Speyer’s design of the Ben Rose House, and his student David Haid’s design of an accompanying glass pavilion. Speyer himself had studied under the renowned modernist Mies van der Rohe. It was this architectural trajectory, that was our client’s inspiration for the project.

The 40 sqm cabin will be accessed through a solid timber door which reveals a long thin space containing the kitchen, and frames a view to the trees beyond at the far end. There will be a shower room with a full length window to the shower itself, and a double bedroom. The living space, which is to be glazed floor to ceiling on 3 sides, will be an homage to David Haid’s famous pavilion and offer expansive views of the mature woodland setting. The dark grey steel structure will be finished externally with untreated timber cladding.