Growing up on a dairy farm made me an avid admirer of traditional New England barns. So, I was delighted when this client came to us asking for a barn/sometimes event space/ sometimes storage, but mostly just a barn. This client, with whom we’ve worked before, has sophisticated, semi-traditional taste. The program specified a space of about 1800 square feet, simple construction, plenty of natural light and the refined appearance of a “gentleman farmer’s” barn.

For us, this was a dream project. I believe that with all clients, architecture should be a collaborative undertaking, and that is especially true when the client has a well-developed sense of good design.

A lot of shared thought went into siting the structure on the land, and we had many conversations about length, width, height, and the resulting proportions of the structure.

We discussed the paradox of a barn with lots of natural light,…there’s no such thing in an old barn unless the roof is full of gaping holes and about to collapse. Holes in the roof? Skylights. And views?…Not important. So that allowed us to use traditional small “barnsash” windows. Then came big sliding barn doors, opening on opposite sides of the structure, so just in case you’re thrashing wheat with a flail on the barn floor, the breeze through the openings will help to blow away the chaff.

Overall, the project is a modest bit of architecture trying to fit into an old New England agrarian typology. And yes…it’s just a barn.