Tanglewood Conservatories Blog

Continuation of last entry:

You mentioned the differences between designing a conservatory that will be freestanding versus one that will be attached a house.

From a design standpoint, a freestanding building needs to be much more of a “sculpture in a garden”. It will usually be a focal point of some sort and needs to be able to hold its own against its backdrop. Positioning of the room is important. How it relates to its surroundings, natural and man made and what the negative space that is created looks like, are questions that need to be carefully considered.

In this case, the side of the conservatory serves as one boundary of an adjacent hedge maze and is the terminus of a stone path that begins at an iron gate at the far end of a manicured lawn and winds through a small wood to the conservatory front door. The conservatory is set quite away from the house though it is clearly visible from both the front and the back yards.

A freestanding conservatory also can be more ornamental, or sparse (the opposite design direction), so that it has the strength to hold its own in the overall design composition and doesn’t fade away. It can be much less related to the existing home and can actually be designed to be very different so that it stands out even more.

From a construction standpoint, a freestanding conservatory can have extra challenges. It can sometimes be more difficult to accommodate the HVAC system which usually might be tucked into the basement of the adjacent house.

The solution for this is to either build a fairly substantial basement or crawlspace under the conservatory itself or to attach a small “addition” building to the room to house the mechanical elements. Sometimes we design this small “addition” to house a bathroom as well as the mechanical stuff although we once put in a wine cellar.

Hope this is helpful.

Recently, someone asked me about the different design approaches that Tanglewood might use when approaching a new project and why they can be so different. I’d like to share my reply below:

Lynn,

I am happy you asked about the variety of the stylistic approaches we take. This is something we take very seriously as we want to be sure we don’t allow ourselves to get comfortable using any one idiom, overwriting our clients (sometimes subtle) directions or sacrificing design integrity for production/manufacturing efficiencies.

Our team, designers, builders and managers, many of whom have been with us since our inception, is composed of individuals who feed on challenging the “box”.

We’ve been known to “invent” whole new construction systems just to achieve a customer’s concept – without allowing ourselves to compromise.
Our goal, and hopefully we achieve some success in this, is to be a reflector for our clients vision, needs and dreams.

We try to listen to them very carefully then use our architectural, manufacturing and construction skills and our creativity to produce a synthesis which is really theirs, not ours.

I know that a lot of companies espouse the same concepts, but it can sometimes be no more than marketing gibberish.

Anyway, enough philosophizing. Hopefully our results speak for themselves.
About #11 project which you’ve asked about:

Project Scope and Objectives
The scope of the project included the design, pre-fabrication and on site erection of a free-standing conservatory spa room at an estate home.

Primary objectives of the clients were:
1. The room was conceived to enclose an in ground spa as well as a formal seating area.
2. The room had to accommodate the clients desire to provide a space for viewing TV.
3. Be a whimsical, private getaway from the clients busy lives.
4. The new room had to be a distinctive feature within the garden landscape, and relate to the main house a stones throw away.

Project Challenges
1. To design a small, whimsical building that would accommodate various very different functions within a detached “conservatory” structure.
2. Design the building to harmonize with the existing residence.

Project Solutions
Sq. Footage 295 S.F. freestanding garden room spa.
1. The building uses brick matched to the existing home and echoes some of it’s design features such as the gable roof over the entry way and the curvilinear entry steps.
2. We did not try to make separate spaces for the formal seating and/or the informal spa but chose instead to let them share one large room and embrace this unique juxtaposition.

To be continued… please see next blog entry.