The Wee Crook cafe is the first phase to be completed of the ambitious community venture to revive and transform the historic Crook Inn. The new cafe provides vital community space for social gatherings and begins the important work to restore the Crook Inn site as the heart of community life in Tweedsmuir. We concentrated on occupying the existing stone outbuilding in as simple a way as possible; opening up the space to connect to the ongoing garden development projects surrounding the building and create a light, bright and welcoming space for locals and visitors.
In the future the cafe will be joined by a bunkhouse, a camp site and full restoration of the historic Crook Inn, providing hotel accommodation, a bar, restaurant, venue space and a shop.
The design revolves around the principal component of a writers desk, which sits on the old low glasshouse wall to make it deeper and more generous, and increase the volume of the building without increasing the footprint or having to build new foundations. The overhanging desk forms a cantilever which supports the uprights of the new glazed canopy. A plinth for the stove provides an alternative place to sit away from the desk. As a writing space for a couple who are both writers, it is expected to be largely free of clutter so each can occupy it afresh each time.
The form echoes but does not mimic the original glasshouse lean to profile, adding height and width while the original masonry walls are preserved. The portal frames are formed from sandwiched Douglas fir timbers with steel plates at the crank points. The repeated bays honestly communicate their engineering with exposed fixing bolts. These ‘flitch’ frames were designed in close collaboration with engineers David Narro Associates.
This is not a home office for surrounding the user with all the accoutrements and comforts of the home, but providing a simple and clean shelter away from such clutter, distinct from the enclosure of the house, and more typical of the bolt holes and dens at the bottom of the garden that inspire us as children.
The hope is that the space allows the writers to reset their mindset in a distinctly different environment to their home, surrounded by changing shadows on desk and walls, the sound of rain falling on glass, and the sound of the wind in the trees surrounding it.
Team
Client : Private Client
Contractor : Inscape Joinery
Structural Engineers : David Narro Associates
Photographs : Dapple Photography
