The former ‘Straight Eight’ garage in Bramshaw is currently home to Bentley Hampshire, a new addition to the Harwood’s group. The existing property has been extended incrementally over previous decades and appears as an incongruous collection of former domestic premises and industrial workshops. A requirement to bring the existing workshops up to current standards offered an opportunity to reorganise the Bentley showroom, enabling the provision of a satellite Aston Martin showroom and a chance to create some coherence to the building frontage.

The introduction of a brick facing-wall is employed to reorder and unify the principle elevations. This wall is punctuated along its length to create framed views of the vehicles within. The Aston Martin showroom is highlighted through the use of a projecting zinc and glass bay window which stands forward of the brick, and differentiates it from the Bentley showroom whose windows sit back behind this plane.

By removing the existing conservatory structure, a new sedum covered flat ‘lid’ floats across the space sitting above the new wall, and with a glazed enclosure beneath it forms a new showroom space and crucially, sets up a new entrance beneath the overhanging roof on the south side. A stainless steel entrance portico straddles a level entrance platform, which bridges an ornamental pool. All existing Upvc cladding is to be replaced with untreated horizontal shiplap Cedar boarding. This will serve to further enhance a unified appearance between the old and new elements of the showroom.