by TimCrump
8. February 2011 14:28
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Recently 13 members of the team spent a day out visiting four of our previous Country Buildings projects in Berkshire and Hampshire. The day offered an opportunity for members of the team that are usually in the office designing to get out to site and see the finished product. This also gave us the opportunity to meet with the clients to get there feedback in our constant strive to improve our buildings.
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These were all buildings built by our country buildings department, who specialise in outbuildings such as garages, studios and garden barns.
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A group consisting of sales team members, frame designers, project managers, estimators and our general manager set off at 7.30am to a site just outside of Reading, thankfully the M4 was running freely for once and we all arrived prompt at 10am.
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We have built 2 buildings for Michael, the first, a simple garage and car port some 4 years ago, and 18 months ago Michael ordered his second building, a garage and studio building to provide a music room to house a grand piano. Both buildings have stood the test of time well and it is great to see the buildings in use.
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The next visit was in Hungerford, where we had built a barn in 2006, this is one of our garden barn range, with a mezzanine floor at one end to provide a useful second floor, the building had been fitted out by the client and felt really homely inside, this building really did work well for the site, in fact so well that we have also built a very similar building for a property 200 yards down to the road.
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After a quick stop for lunch it was on to our third site just outside of Basingstoke, this was a project still in progress with landscaping being completed when we arrived. The building was one of our much requested room over buildings with garaging and storage on the ground floor and a surprisingly usable studio room in the roof accessed by a jointed green oak staircase.
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The building sits next to a 17th Century listed building, which proved a challenge when applying for planning permission, but with the design and planning works provided in house by Oakwrights the scheme was successfully approved and the finished result is a building that really compliments the original house.
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Our final visit was to a site close to Newbury, another listed building, and another project designed and taken through planning by Oakwrights. Chris had commissioned a replacement barn style garage and workshop in 2008, due to planning restrictions the height had to be kept to less than 4m, but to retain the floor area inside we designed the building as an aisled frame, this allowed for a larger footprint but retained a low ridge height, the result is a really practical building.
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In 2010 and after a lot of negotiations with various planners, we built Chris’ second frame, an extension to the house, the building was finished with face glazing, and the result is truly stunning.
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The day offered the team a real insight in to the finished buildings and gave the clients a chance to give us some feedback to help develop our buildings, a huge thank you to all four clients for their hospitality and for being so accommodating with us turning up on mass.
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