Architectural designer Benjamin Twells got the kind of brief that many in his field dream of when he was tasked with masterminding a contemporary extension on a 19th-century stone threshing barn in England\u2019s Cotswolds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe client is a sort of eccentric character with a kind of \u2018anything is possible\u2019 attitude, which was the most inspiring relationship to work with,\u201d he said. \u201cHis brief was very open. He knew that he wanted the best parts of the country house life, but he didn\u2019t want the dingy, dark, small windows of a traditional Cotswold stone farmhouse, for example. It was very much about, \u2018How can we do something different in this pristine valley in the Cotswolds, which is very prestigious to be in? How can we push the boundaries?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Twells\u2019s design juxtaposes classical and contemporary, contrasting the simple stone structure of the barn with a sweeping curve of glass, wood and Cotswold stone, which is linked to the barn by a glass tunnel and extends in a gentle arc into the hillside beyond. Twells\u2019s company, SOTA Design, was established in 2019 \u201creally, to facilitate this project,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Short for State of the Art, the name of his studio embodies his approach, which aims to \u201cdraw on what is already in existence and reinterpret that in a contemporary way, to a level where we are pushing boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n
MORE: <\/strong>Burt Reynolds, Jake Paul and Five Finger Death Punch: 10 Celebrity Homes That Wowed in 2025<\/a><\/p>\n The client for this career-defining project, the CEO of a global outdoor-media infrastructure company, had a few specifications in terms of his family\u2019s living requirements, but left the structure, appearance and layout of the home to Twells.\u00a0<\/p>\n Finished in 2024, the new wing of the house features everything one would expect in a classic country house, including four bedrooms, a generous central living space, a playroom, snug, boot room, scullery, pantry, powder room and laundry, but it also contains a multilevel basement sunk into the hillside, containing a private cinema, a barrel-vaulted Cotswold stone wine cellar, a gallery and museum-quality art storage facilities.<\/p>\n The glass-walled central living space is centered on a seven-ton carved granite fireplace that anchors a living area, dining area and curved kitchen. Curving panels of oak on the ceiling echo the wooden cladding on the striking overhang outside, one of many details designed to create an indoor-outdoor feel that unites the interior of the property with the natural landscape beyond.<\/p>\n The main inspiration for the shape of the barn\u2019s sweeping stone-and-glass extension was the natural contours of the land on which the building stands.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was essentially an 11,000-square-foot extension on a 2,000-square-foot barn. So we dug 25,000 tons out of the hillside,\u201d Twells said. \u201cThen what you have is a sort of slit that opens up, and then the hillside could roll over the top.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The family home is a juxtaposition of old and new. Twells began by restoring the barn to its original layout, demolishing a modern extension and stripping away some internal interventions that weren\u2019t in keeping with the historic style, including a large landing with glass balconies that had been added in the 1990s, interrupting the cohesion of the barn\u2019s double-height internal space.<\/p>\n The designer chose to connect the two halves of the property with a simple glass tunnel, surrounded on the exterior by water and enormous chunks of local stone, intended to link it to the local landscape and the site\u2019s agricultural history.<\/p>\n MORE:<\/strong>\u00a0230 Interior Plants Are \u2018the Lungs\u2019 of This Aussie Wellness House<\/a><\/p>\n The choice of materials was key in uniting two such disparate architectural styles, creating a juxtaposition that feels striking but not jarring. \u201cI\u2019ve worked in the Cotswolds for 12 years now, so we\u2019ve got a really good understanding of local materials, how and why things are built the way they are,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can get anything from anywhere and put it together and you would still have a lovely house, but it wouldn\u2019t necessarily feel at home where it is.\u201d<\/p>\n