April Practice News

This month, we’re proud to share beautifully captured photographs of The Granary by Richard Chivers, along with news of the start on site at St Barnabas, and highlights from a recent event with the University of Reading School of Architecture.

The Granary completes

We’re delighted to share images of the recently completed The Granary, a truly unique project located near Burley in the New Forest National Park. The original property forms part of a late 18th-century agricultural model farm. While the building itself is not listed, it sits within the curtilage of a listed structure, which made the planning process more complex.

Our design carefully reworks the existing building, infilling the open carport at ground floor level to extend the living accommodation and bring the primary living spaces down to this level. This approach allows the first floor to accommodate more private functions.

The result is a generous and flexible ground floor, with the potential to create additional bedrooms as needed, supporting the long-term future of the building for its young owners.

Have a look at more completed photos here.

St Barnabas started onsite

Phase One of the church renovation is now underway on site. Located in the Knowle district, close to Bristol city centre, the church required reconfiguration to better support the needs of its local community.

This phase of work focuses on the interior, creating more accessible and flexible facilities, including an upgraded kitchen, private meeting spaces, improved WC provision, and a range of sustainable enhancements.

We look forward to sharing further updates as the project progresses, learn more about the project here. 

Reading University Lecture

Darren was invited to take part in the University of Reading School of Architecture’s latest lecture series, The Politics of Space, this month.

His presentation, titled Small Moves, Big Impact, explored how architecture and design can achieve more with less. The talk reflected on a number of key projects Studio BAD has delivered over the past seven years, with a particular focus on community-led work, including St Margarets Church, Bedford Place, and October Books.

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Planning success for sustainable charging at Marwell

Studio BAD have worked in collaboration with University of Southampton to research, and achieved planning permission for fully off-grid electric charging within the Marwell Zoo customer car park, near Winchester in Hampshire.

Designed to deliver sustainable infrastructure to support the nationwide drive towards sustainable car charging, without adding a burden to the existing electrical grid, this project is a trail which we hope can be rolled out to more locations in the near future. This scheme is set to be live for three years, to test the unique, fully off grid electrical vehicle charging technology. Because of the temporary nature of the installation, the design does not involve the removal or alternation of any of the mature trees on the site, installing permanent foundations, or fixing, it has been designed to touch the ground lightly, and be removable.

In total the project will deliver over 20 car charging space, with solar panels installed on butterfly roofs, linked to battery storage, and a back up generator.

The design offering visitors to the zoo an opportunity to charge their cars sustainably. Supporting and aligning to the zoo’s strong commitment in this area, other initiatives include generating their own power through solar power, and their ‘Zoo Poo’ project which recycles animal waste to heat buildings.

The project works in collaboration with the FEVER research project, led by the University of Southampton in partnership with Universities of Sheffield, Surrey, and Portsmouth, and funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Courtyard House cladding update

On our most recent site visit to Courtyard House, we were thrilled to see the roof completed, the scaffolding removed, and the external cladding almost completed, marking another positive milestone in the construction phase.

The vertical timber cladding wraps the whole building, helping to blend the new structure into the rural setting. Two complementary timber finishes have been introduced to subtly break down the building’s massing and add visual depth.

The work is now shifting to the interior works, and we are very much looking forward to documenting how this projects continues to evolve onsite.

Studio BAD deliver RIBA CPD

We are pleased to annouce that Darren Bray will be delivering a RIBA CPD session, alongside Professor Lorraine Farrelly, on Laying the Foundations: Navigating feasibility studies for project success, as part of the 2026 RIBA Core CPD programme.

On this course they will be discussing the pivotal role feasibility studies play in delivering successful architectural projects. Learning outcomes will include:

  • Analysing site constraints, planning policy, budgets, environmental factors, and client briefs to inform project feasibility
  • Evaluating risks and opportunities for a range of project typologies, including new builds, retrofits, community assets, and housing
  • Genegrating feasibility study data into proposals that demonstrate project value, sustainability, and deliverability.

We really enjoyed working with the RIBA to put these together, find out more and sign up here. As part of the 2026 core programme you can learn on demand at a time that suits you, and complete the courses in any order.

 

Courtyard House, January Project Update

We visited the Courtyard House site last week, located in the New Forest near the village of Burley, and were delighted to see that the building is now ‘watertight’; an important milestone in the construction process.

With the glazing fully installed and the roof now tiled, the project is now completely enclosed and protected from the elements. This marks a key transition on site, allowing the construction team to move their focus to the internal works, including plumbing, electrics, and finishes. From this stage on, the scheme will begins to feel more like a home and less like a building site.

Internally, the house feels spacious and filled with natural light, something we have worked incredibly hard to achieve on this narrow site. The internal courtyards, carefully cut into the building form, respond to the constraints of the elongated plot by drawing daylight deep into the plan and strengthening the connection between inside and out.

We look forward to sharing further updates as this New Forest residential project continues to take shape.

January 2026 studio update

In this roundup, we’re pleased to start the year with news about our new Sheffield church project, update from the Brick Pavilion in Chichester, and details of Darren’s recent RIBA Hampshire lecture.

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Sheffield Church Development

We are thrilled to have started to expand our reach, and are currently working on a comprehensive feasibility study for the existing buildings at St Thomas’s Church in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

The study has reviewed the condition, layout, and long-term potential of the church’s built assets, with the aim of ensuring the property continues to support both the congregation and the wider community in a sustainable and meaningful way. We look forward to sharing more updates from the scheme as the design develops, to see more details about the project click here. 

Brick Pavillion Planning Submitted

We have submitted our designs that reimagine the Brick Pavillion located in Priory Park, Chichester, West Sussex.

Working with Chichester Community Development Trust (CDT) we have explored the potential and redevelopment of this locally significant building which has been vacant, and neglected for years. Our designs look to transform the building into a vibrant community facility, integrating the pavilion with the existing park amenities. For more details of the scheme, click here.

RIBA Hampshire

Darren was invited to take part in the RIBA Hampshire Lecture series, as part of their ‘Lightning Talks’ session alongside five other Hampshire based practices.

During the event, each speaker was giving a short time to deliver a concise talk explaining how small moves have generated big impact in their projects. Darren discussed the work Studio BAD delivered at St Margaret’s Church in Portsmouth, reinterpreting the church building to drawing people to reengage with this incredible building – read more about the project here.