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Hannington Farm

Hannington Farm is a family home set within 300 acres of Northamptonshire farmland. It is formed as a cranked linear assembly of contiguous rectangular volumes, articulated with asymmetrical pitched roofs and freestanding chimneys. The ‘knot’ at the centre of this arrangement serves as an entrance hall and fulcrum to the various wings of the house. This arrangement provides three loosely defined external gardens that diffuse into the landscape.

Clients who had acquired the former farmstead, including a number of derelict red brick farm buildings, commissioned the house. They wanted to build a new home to a high standard and specification, while restoring the landscape and establishing a deer park and shoot with an emphasis on sustainability and respect for the natural environment.

The entire building is clad in stone, including stone shingles for the roofs, creating a pleasing sense of cohesion and unity. Three tall stone chimneys tower upwards, forming strong vertical lines in the landscape reminiscent of both the bell towers of Italian hill towns and industrial architecture of the English midlands.

“Although this house is undoubtedly a fine modern manor home, it also provides an approach to how more modest new build homes could be informed by an evolving tradition that creates modern vernacular houses in rural settings.”

RIBA Awards, 2019
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James Gorst’s work has helped to heal one of the most unnecessary and painful wounds in contemporary British architecture: between the traditionalists and the modernists. Like Louis Kahn in the United States or Peter Zumthor in Switzerland, Gorst reminds us that modernism can be beautifully reconciled with the underlying principles of classicism and that modern materials and idioms can carry all the elegance, dignity and grandeur associated with historical masterpieces.

Alain de Botton

© 2023 James Gorst Architects. All rights reserved.

Design: Tom Green Design. Build: Designagogo.