Fraher Architects | London | UK

Garden Cottage

admin — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:40:12 +0000

The Garden Cottage sits overlooking the rolling countryside of Lancashire. A former stable block to a country house, its situation benefits from sitting within the heart of beautiful Lancastrian topography.

The project looks to minimise the building’s carbon footprint by internally insulating all the existing external walls. The proposal will open up the original stable vaulted ceiling making a double height living and eating space. The rear facade of the building is to be open up, embracing the view whilst inside the building.

Sustainably sourced materials will be used throughout the building. Colour will be important to the scheme so as to reflect the rich colourful surrounding context of the garden and the landscape. Fraher provided a full RIBA Architectural Service for this project.

Images courtesy of Andy Matthews

Barnes House

admin — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 17:08:40 +0000

The Barnes House is the refurbishment and extension of a single family home on an urban site in London. The Client wished to remodel the existing living space and extend upwards into the loft to accommodate a master suite with views over the garden.

The proposals look to open up the ground floor level of accommodation, to encourage a fluid and active space inhabited by all the family. The spaces become more private as you rise through the building reaching the haven of the master suite. Fraher Architects provided a full RIBA Architectural Service for the project.

Images courtesy of Andy Matthews.

The Butterfly House grows its wings

admin — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:42:24 +0000

After a fantastic week’s weather, we have nearly completed The Butterfly House roof wings. The roof is one of the first of its kind, relying upon the structural integrity of the timber with no supporting steelwork or valley beam. The cranked slab constructed from 950 linear meters of 125 x 50mm C16 softwood hangs in space, mimicking the underside of the wings of a butterfly. The roof angles its head towards the garden and the light, appearing to shift as you walk around the room. The scaffold support has since been dropped with just the final trimming of the individual timbers to complete before it flies.

Our photographer Andy Matthews came to site on Saturday to take a few shots of progress which you can see here. 10 more weeks until completion then we will be able to post the finished shots!

Exact Target

admin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:32:14 +0000

We are delighted to be able to share the images of an office fit out for Exact Target that we assisted Quad Contracts on in Central London recently. The fit out was delivered to a tight schedule and programme, incorporating ideas valuing social spaces as well as task space. Fraher worked with Quad to develop layout ideas for the Client We welcomed the opportunity for a new collaboration and hope to work with Quad Contracts again in the near future.

100% Planning success!

admin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:18:14 +0000

We work collaboratively with local planning authorities to achieve the best solution for our clients. To date we have be fortunate enough to maintain a 100% success record across all project sectors. This has included a number of projects that are within a sensitive planning environment: some National Parks, Conservation Areas and many Listed Buildings.

We have just received full planning approval for the following schemes:

North Downs Studio: Set within a National Park and an area of outstanding natural beauty. Click through here to find out more about this project.

Wandsworth House: Click through here to find out more about this project.

The Look Out: Set within the Barnes Common Conservation area and is a Locally Listed Building. Click through here to find out more about this project.

Fingers crossed we can keep up the statistic!

AJ Exhibition

admin — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:14:07 +0000

We have been re-assembling an early development model of The Jewel Box for the AJ Small Project’s Exhibition which is opening at the NLA next Thursday. The model is certainly sketchy but is a representation of all our ideas for the project.

Don’t Move Improve

admin — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:38:03 +0000

We were really thrilled to be awarded runner up in this year’s NLA, Dont Move Improve Awards for The Jewel Box last night. The awards evening was packed and gave us an opportunity to see all the competition. A massive thank you to all involved in judging and the Client is pleased with their BoConcept vouchers.

Details about the exhibition and awards can be seen below and the Building Centre is well worth a visit.

“An exhibition of the 72 shortlisted schemes from this year’s ‘Don’t Move, Improve!’ competition, which invited architects and homeowners from across Greater London to submit their most innovative and well-designed home extension, interior design and small office conversion projects completed within the last three years.

Projects on display range from roof, basement and side extensions to complete home refurbishments and garden workspaces.

The schemes were judged by an eminent jury including Peter Murray, Chairman of NLA; Elle Decoration’s Editor-in-Chief Michelle Ogundehin; Tamsie Thomson, Director at RIBA London; David Mikhail of David Mikhail Architects and the British Institute of Interior Design’s President Diana Yakeley.

The winners of the 2011/12 awards are:

Home Extension or Refurbishment
Joint Winner: Dove House, Gundry & Ducker
Joint Winner: Suburbanstudio, Ashton Porter Architects
Runner-up: The Jewel Box, Fraher Architects
Commendation: Cornerstone, Threefold Architects

Office Extension or Refurbishment
Winner: Magnificent Container, Carl Turner Architects
Commendation: Belsize Garage Studio, Sanya Polescuk Architects

Home Interior Design
Commendation: The Brunswick Centre Apartment, Space Group Architects”

To visit the exhibition and find out more about the awards please click through here:

New member of the team

admin — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:32:20 +0000

We have a new member joining us at Fraher Architects. Marie studied at The Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Architecture de Bretagne graduating in 2009. In France, Marie is a qualified Architect, having worked at practices in Rennes and Nantes before coming to England this year. Marie will be working on a number of the London based residential projects and has a keen interest in timber architecture.

Marie is with us as part of the Leonardo Da Vinci Internship programme.

Cladding Options for Butterfly House

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:01:33 +0000

We are currently experimenting with the cladding finish for the Butterfly House. We are considering a number of options, that vary in both timber finish and panel format.

We will be using cutting down scrap scaffolding boards into tessellated shapes, creating the most material and cost efficient cladding format. We are swaying towards a dark oiled finish board, that when cut reveals the true timber colour on the edge. We will be working on sample panels on Friday so we will keep you posted with the chosen format. Tweet @fraherchat with any ideas.

AJ Small Project’s Awards Shortlist

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:12:17 +0000

We are excited to announce that we have been shortlisted for this year’s Architects Journal Small Project’s Awards 2012. The Jewel box has made a shortlist of 24, from 156 entries! We are delighted with the nomination as the field was particularly strong this year. Check out the AJ Building Library for full details.

We now have a ’supercrit,’ to attend where the winner will be determined. As we teach at Nottingham University, it’s a while since we were in the ’student’s chair!’

We are especially pleased as we are one of the cover images chosen for this week’s special issue! It feels rather nice to get to work and find a copy of a great architectural magazine on your desk with your building on the front. For those that received the alternative covers, please see our scan of the magazine.

Fingers crossed for the crit and we will let you all know how we get on!