A extraordinary renovation becomes a holiday home for the discerning.

Cockfield Windmill in Suffolk was a former windmill structure recently converted to accommodation for holiday lets. Metsä Wood recommended the use of Kerto-Q to form the curved rib structure with each rib having a different shape and size to form the inverted boat.

WHEN Londoners Natalie Roberts and her husband, Steve, treated themselves to a weekend at Bury St Edmunds’ Christmas market they weren’t planning to buy a windmill.

It was 2007. They were looking for a business project that would take them, and Natalie’s mother Jean, out of London. But Steve was convinced that the property, which was for sale, complete with farmhouse, granary and derelict windmill, wasn’t it.

Beech Architects converted a 125-year-old windmill in Suffolk, England, into a modern guest house for rent. Complete with a metal-clad observation pod on top, the new guesthouse is well insulated and features custom-made furniture that fits its constraining circular layout.

There’s a lot of potential value and beauty in older structures — not just for preserving the traditions they represent, but also for reducing of waste and carbon emissions associated with building something new from scratch. Having lost its cap and sails, this bottom stump of an abandoned, 125-year-old windmill in Suffolk, United Kingdom has been remade into a unique guesthouse, containing two bedrooms, a kitchen-diner, a bathroom, and topped with a zinc-clad viewing pod.

This project is a conversion of a former windmill structure located in the heart of Suffolk. The structure is a mill stump constructed of brick and suffering from loss of its sails and cap decades before. The design replaces the cap with a contemporary zinc pod installation but based on the traditional ‘inverted boat’ form exploiting the stunning views over the Suffolk countryside and provides a fantastic living space for its visitors. The structure offers its own challenges of planning and design where no internal lines offer a straight edge making the circulation strategy and use of each space an interesting prospect.

UK firm Beech Architects has converted a 125-year-old windmill stump in Suffolk, England, into a guest house topped with an elliptical zinc-clad pod.

There’s a lot of potential value and beauty in older structures — not just for preserving the traditions they represent, but also for reducing of waste and carbon emissions associated with building something new from scratch. Having lost its cap and sails, this bottom stump of an abandoned, 125-year-old windmill in Suffolk, United Kingdom has been remade into a unique guesthouse, containing two bedrooms, a kitchen-diner, a bathroom, and topped with a zinc-clad viewing pod.

An abandoned windmill in a beautiful countryside of England’s Suffolk has been brought back to life by Beech Architects.

Rather than tearing down a 125-year-old windmill on their property, a family in Suffolk, England, turned to Beech Architects to re-purpose the historic structure into something more practical for their current needs. The studio turned the derelict windmill column into a guest house that offers its occupants stunning views of the surrounding farmland.