Studio 28

Small size has never been an impediment to a building winning an award, if the quality is there, and the studio is an excellent case in point. Occupying the previous site of a double garage, it makes the best of a confined footprint through the application of ingenuity, coupled with an eye for utilising materials and the manipulation of spaces to create something of genuine verve. The studio makes a deliberate contrast with the redbrick Victorian house in whose rear garden it sits, with walls and roof all in artificial slate, making for a very unified appearance. One large corner window creates excellent views from inside out to the garden. The interior has living and cooking space downstairs, with a bedroom on a mezzanine level above, accessed by a staircase of interestingly unconventional form, to fit into the very tight space. Timber structural elements are often left exposed, with a focus on the staircase, whose balusters continue down to ground level, as the main visual accent. High levels of insulation were an integral part of the project. The judges were highly impressed by the thought which had been put in, to create a small building which is clearly a great asset to the house to which it belongs.

Architect: Gerald Steer, Salisbury