In the heart of the Wye Valley AONB, Bird’s Orchard is a tiny cottage, formerly a coach house, with a total floor area of just 60m² over two storeys. Planning permission has been granted by Forest of Dean District Council for Hall + Bednarczk’s design which enlarges the cottage and introduces river views down to the Wye.

The design must strike a delicate balance – ensuring that the petite scale of the original building retains its legibility, while freeing up the plan to provide lots more space for a growing young family and celebrating the wonderful rural location in which Bird’s Orchard nestles. Two carefully judged extensions work hard in both plan and section to squeeze every morsel of space from the 120m² building – yielding four bedrooms, a pair of bathrooms and a free-flowing sequence of ground floor family rooms that open out to a verdant garden.