18th Century Barn Renovation In France

Hello all,
We are a French-Irish couple in our early 30’s. Enda is the Irish one, he works as an engineer and would rather be a gentleman farmer and a cook if he could ‘burn the candle from both ends’. Floriane is the French one, a business professional, who’d rather spend time singing and crafting things if she won the jackpot.
We own two agricultural buildings in our family hamlet, that we plan to convert into a home and its extension in a few stages. This contest looks at converting the barn into the core house, though it is good to keep the other building in mind to remain coherent on the long term. Particularly because we will have to indicate what our more long term strategy is for openings and for connecting the two builds in the planning permission procedure.

You will find three documents attached with the plans:
– document 1 aims at explaining a bit more how the hamlet and the barn are laid out, and how the few drawings we are attaching relate to each other;
– document 2a and 2b tell you a bit more about who we are, how we live, what the building means to us, what our minimum and dream requirements are, what philosophy we would like to approach the barn conversion with and what our taste is like, and a small dictionary of the french terms and acronyms you will see on the plans.

The initial idea is to restore the building before planning laws don’t allow it anymore and before the 200 year old roof collapses. The clock’s ticking, both challenges are coming soon. Our core idea is that we want to have a long-term home. Which leads us to define a set of basic requirements. What is more unclear is what extras we might want to get out of it in a more distant future. In document 2, as well as the reference pictures, there are ‘add-on’ ideas out of which you can pick what you like and make proposals.

You can read more about it in document 2 but here is a bit that tells you what we would like our build to stand for:
– Uplifting architecture, inspiring and energising place
– Preserving the hamlet’s integrity, respecting the building and its history, encouraging hamlet life yet keeping some privacy
– Friends and family are drawn from far to visit the place
– Warmth, rest, openness, comfort, brightness, authenticity, casual conviviality
– Connection with nature and the landscape
– The home has a centre upon which people converge
– Timeless architecture. A few stand-out architectural features. Fashion or trends are accepted only in easily replaceable features such as furniture
– Durability, simplicity, practicality, flexibility for future changes in some spaces
– Self tidying, self cleaning and low maintenance building
– Sympathetic materials, honest design, clever and studied choices amongst the whole range of traditional methods and new technologies

On self sufficiency, passive house, eco-trends and budget:
Of course we care for the planet and we are open to suggestions. But please remember: ‘clever choices’. We will not choose ‘green’ for the sake of choosing ‘green’. We also have to consider budget, which is a challenge regarding the scale of the works that have to be done. In other words, we are open to suggestions on waxed concrete floor, concrete-filled polystyrene brick walls as much as we are on wind turbines.
Overall, we want to see all the great ideas you have but it could be that we eventually have to choose some features rather than all for budget reasons. Therefore we will welcome any tip you could have on how to prioritise and how to make some of your proposals affordable.

We are looking forward to seeing all the amazing stuff you will put forward and wish you a good luck with the cocontest!

Flo and Enda

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