British Horse Society

Charity

Winner of the 2011 BCO Regional Awards
Projects Up to 2,000 m²

Background

The prestigious British Horse Society had commissioned a new build BREEAM ‘Good’ development for its HQ at Stoneleigh in Warwickshire.

Totalling 21,466 sq ft the space comprises offices, a reception, a lecture theatre, meeting rooms, board room, toilets, a coffee bar, breakout spaces and a small mail order fulfilment centre.

Our brief included designing internal layouts/space planning, lighting, finishes and furniture & fixtures.

Being a circular (or doughnut) shaped building constructed around a historic oak tree called for particularly imaginative solutions when space planning, as the offices would not be entirely open plan.

Despite its well-established programme of digitising its new and archived information, the Society’s work remains paper-intense, necessitating considerable storage space.

Our Solution

We overcame the use of open and closed offices in a circular building by creating cellular spaces that are glazed fronted to maximise light penetration.
We further enhanced the glazing by incorporating large scale colour photography from the Society’s own image library to convey its purpose and passion. Whilst trompe l’oeil effects give the impression of horses walking through the building.

The beautiful parkland location and views did much of the work for us, with finishes and colours selected to work harmoniously and sensitively with the outside environment.

Results

Graham Cory, The British Horse Society’s chief executive, is full of praise. “It is enlightening to see how valuable were those discussions we had with Monteith Scott on matters of aesthetics.

As a dyed-in-the-wool apologist for magnolia, I am relieved that Alison Monteith was able to interest me in a broader palette. The result is a degree of harmony in terms of colour and texture between surfaces, furnishings and fabrics which we would certainly not have achieved on our own. It is to Monteith Scott’s credit that they knew when, and how far, to push an idea and when to bow to the client’s prejudices…

In sum, Monteith Scott have taken what we asked for and made it even better. They’ve given us an environment which is unique, personal to The British Horse Society and spectacularly reflective of the passion we feel for our work.”