Ancient Party Barn-Wait Till You See The Folding Wall!

A Unique Blend of Old and New

The Ancient Party Barn is like nothing you've seen before. With a mix of old and new this modern barn still retains its rustic feel with the stone wall and antique posts and beams throughout. This stunning barn style house was shortlisted for the prestigious Stephen Lawrence National Architecture Award and awarded a RIBA South East regional award. The kinetic Ancient Party Barn style house is a playful re-working of a historic agricultural building for residential use. The modern barn design inverts the typical barn-conversion type, creating introspective, modern spaces set in the open countryside.

Innovative Architectural Features

Two of the walls in this barn style house offer unique ways to close up the modern barn space and to open the home to natural light. At one end of the modern barn is a wall that folds up to expose a wall of windows, while one of the sides of the barn style house is two large doors that open up to a large window. And if that weren't interesting enough, the large window on the side can then be pulled open with a whole system to let in the fresh air and open the side wall up. The exterior of the modern barn uses Shou Sugi Ban siding for a lovely look while inside the barn there is plenty of antique wood, posts and beams and a stone wall to give a rustic look and feel.

The Shou Sugi Ban Technique

Shou sugi ban is the ancient Japanese method of burning the surface of the wood to help preserve it. The final wood product is also known as Yakisugi, with yaki meaning to cook/burn and sugi being the Japanese name for cedar. Shou-Sugi-Ban is usually done with planks of cedar or larch, with the thin layer of carbon that is created during a light surface burn to protect the wood. This technique draws out the moisture in the wood, which results in a chemical compound that protects the wood. Cedar and larch are both very durable and resistant to rot. This technique can also be done with other common woods to include pine, maple, hemlock, or oak.

Benefits of Shou Sugi Ban

Some of the benefits of Shou Sugi Ban are that it makes the wood durable and long lasting, with a life expectancy being estimated at more than 80 years when the wood is properly maintained. This is a sustainable technique with wood being a renewable resource and no chemicals required for this technique of finishing. The result of using Shou Sugi Ban on the exterior of your home design is that it is so aesthetically pleasing, you can get a variety of beautiful colors out the wood depending on how deep you burn and how deep you brush, and to further alter or enhance the colors the wood can be stained as well. This technique helps to make the wood water resistant as the combination of the carbonized wood and oil makes the wood resistant to both water and mold. And something surprising about this technique of wood finishing is that it makes the wood fire resistant, this is because burning wood can give it flame retardant properties. And lasting Shou Sugi ban helps to make the wood insect resistant to termites and other problematic insects that hate burnt wood.