Little gem

A humble lambing shed has been transformed into a tranquil home office using both antiques and pieces repurposed from past projects

- Arabella Youens

THE architect Ian Adam-Smith grew up in what he describes as ‘Lutyens territory’ and was greatly influenced in his early years by the architect and COUNTRY LIFE contributor Roderick Gradidge. Having trained first at Plymouth and then Kingston, he set up his practice 25 years ago in a converted garage in Frensham, Surrey, and it now has a reputation for creating new houses rich in architectural detail that appear to have evolved over the centuries. To date, the team has been involved in more than 700 projects across West Sussex, Hampshire and Surrey, as well as in London.

He has recently been joined by his eldest son, Mungo, and the practice is based in a group of barns that stand in the grounds of the family home near Fernhurst in West Sussex, within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park. This studio space is in a traditional timber-frame barn, which was built about 20 years ago. ‘It has been a refuge for my father since the pandemic, when he moved here,’ explains Mr Adam-Smith Jnr.

Before its reinvention as a workspace, the barn was a lambing shed and hay store. At one end, it had a small kitchen and a primitive bathroom. The first intervention was to pull in the porch to create an interesting internal configuration and a more generous elevation.