Designers, gallery owners and identical twins Nik and Jon Daughtry had a dream of building their family homes next to each other, by themselves no less.  Our team helped to make their dream a reality and since completion this project has attracted national acclaim when it was named Best Residential Development at the 2018 Northern Design Awards. 

Built on an old industrial site in Oughtibridge in the north of Sheffield, UK, where a 200-year-old corn mill used to operate, the fittingly named ‘Corn Yard’ was designed for low maintenance living based on the use of untreated materials, exposed services and energy efficiency.

The site has been turned into two five-bedroom homes which manage to retain the original centuries old features while at the same time creating a modern living environment.

This was a great project to work on but one that came with a set of very specific challenges. Not only was there the site’s past, which everybody was determined had to be preserved, but there was also the fact that we had to create two family homes in what is actually quite a small space. We came up with a design that filled all Nik and Jon’s wishes, a brilliantly contemporary pair of properties that also pays tribute to the story of the site and, through the use of materials, to the bigger story of Sheffield’s industrial heritage.

The 80-metre dam, which once provided power for the corn mill, has also been cleaned and restored, providing a haven for kingfishers and other wildlife.