Is it possible that London architects Luke McLaren and Robert Excell of McLaren.Excell were Zen monks in a past life" We think so. The two specialize in using (in their words) “pure and restrained” materials?hay-bale-like wood wool, for instance?to create spaces of surpassing quiet and beauty. “Calm authority,” they say is the goal. Which is no doubt what won them the job of refurbishing Merrydown, a Victorian-era girls’ school in Dorset with an “almost monastic layout: one large room with a single corridor off it and cell-like bedrooms and bathrooms to one side,” as the architects say.
Since the 1970s, the school had been lived in by the mother of the current owner, who approached McLaren.Excell with the project. The single-story building was an obsolete hand-me-down in need of reinventing, and “the brief,” says Excell, was to “strip the structure bare and produce a larger, more interesting set of spaces,” a second story included. The wrinkle" The building’s existing envelope couldn’t be changed. Read on for a lesson in found space and the power of speaking in a whisper. Photography courtesy of McLaren.Excell.

Above: Polished concrete floors and new windows set in deep white walls define the new interiors. The house?shown in its just-finished state?is designed for weekend and vacation use, with a central gathering place (“on a short break, people tend to congregate in one fo...