Oak Barn has been a customer of Cre8tive Space Managing Director, Stevette Potts, since before Cre8tive Space was founded! The first project Stevette and her team worked on with the owners in 2011 was the design and build of a new veterinary practice within a 200 year old listed barn. The planning and conservation constraints created a few challenges along the way, but solutions were found to deliver a beautiful, modern practice that both reflected the buildings existing beauty and contrasted it with modern finishes. Then a few years later Cre8tive Space was invited to carry out further works to support the practice rapid expansion by building new treatment rooms and other facilities as part to the business transformation from practice to veterinary hospital.
Working in a listed building with so much historical significance and beauty needs a different approach to most design and build projects. We were not allowed to fix into any of the existing timbers or other listed surfaces for example. There were challenges around getting infrastructure to where it was needed due to the aesthetic constraints placed on the building by the planning department. Fortunately some ingenious designs and ideas from both our team and the customer team enabled the ‘dream’ facility to be created.
Our most recent project for the Oak Barn team was to convert a second listed barn into a state of the art physiotherapy and hydrotherapy facility. 200 year old oak and water are not a naturally good mix, but again we rose to the challenge to design and deliver a facility that is both beautiful and practical for working with animals requiring rehabilitation.
The Office Dog, Dexter, was one of the first dogs to be put through their paces and test out the hydrotherapy treadmill and gave it the thumbs up – well as best a dog can!