Project The Courtyard Dairy, Settle
The Courtyard Dairy is an award-winning cheese monger situated on the outskirts of Austwick, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the Forest of Bowland AONB.
Since its opening in 2012, owners Kathy and Andy Swinscoe have developed a thriving business storing, maturing and selling high quality farmhouse cheeses direct from individual farms across the United Kingdom and Europe to top restaurants and direct to members of the public via mail order and from their on-site shop.
Native were asked to design and manage the extension of the existing stone barn building to more than double the size of their premises and provide a beautiful shop – immersive cheese experience -, a new cheese themed café space drawing on the beautiful surrounding natural landscape, complementary museum and cheese interpretation. The other important aspects of the brief included hard working, functional spaces with chilled cheese cutting area, cheese making room, and a packing and processing area. A lower ground floor area, partially underground, provides room for dedicated cheese storage and maturation.
It was essential that the design was responsive to the flow of the business and supported improved operational efficiencies and quality of experience for visitors and staff. Additionally careful integration of services was important to the client who was keen to reduce their net energy consumption and CO2 through heat reclamation from chillers and power generation from roof mounted PVs.
The extension takes influence from typical agricultural shed form with larch timber cladding. A black clad link separates between the existing stone building and the new extension taking visitors from the rich, rustic, cheese lined interior of the shop through to the lofty bright café space with sweeping views across the AONB and National Park.
An essential part of the scheme was to improve the accessibility of the building to improve the experience for all visitors. This included a new ramped entrance and single level accessible facilities.
Native managed the design phase of the project up to construction, navigating a smooth planning process whereby the scheme enjoyed the full support of Craven District Council, despite the scale of extension being almost twice the footprint of the existing building.