ABOUT

A professional cookery school and a flexible event space form the core of activities within Satellite’s on going diversification of an historic farm to create the headquarters for the business that has built up around the British TV program River Cottage. The site as a whole encompasses an original 1600’s Dorset long house which is the core of River Cottage, the new cookery school and events space which provide a rural courses centre which make up the body of the Jacobean courtyard and the services building housed in what was originally the 1700’s cart shed. Materials and detailing link old and new, however, the new structure of the cookery school takes the opportunity to exploit the views across a remote valley to the west, while promoting the connection back into the farmyard through a veranda that creates an informal colonnade. The ceilings to both provide acoustic absorption in necessarily solid, robust spaces. Potable water comes from an on site well, rainwater is harvested and wastewater is processed through a reed bed. Heating in centralized to a biomass plant within the old cart shed, while wind and solar power support the power requirements.