KDS Design

48 Laity Fields

Camborne

Cornwall

TR14 8RT

Tel: 01209 613378

email: enquiries@kdsdesign.co.uk

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Office

Tony Opie

Barncoose Business Park

Redruth

TR15 3 RQ

Self Build

£95,000

2003

In 2003 we (then Kernow Draughting Services Limited) were at a point that we needed impressive and spacious purpose built offices to expand the business into. A piece of land was purchased adjacent to the Pirate FM studios at Barncoose Business Park, Redruth and it was decided that in order to keep costs low, we would design and build the property ourselves.

The managing director, Tony Opie, took it upon himself to take on the design role. With his passion for his home County and the Celtic ancestry, he decided to base the plan of the building on the Celtic Cross. However, to construct curved walls between the crossed parts, would have been expensive and we were working on a budget, so to get around this, an octagon was used for the main open plan office area. With an open air porch for one of the cross parts and Manager’s office, toilet block and meeting room for the others.

The building has a total floor space of approximately 140 m², with the main open plan office occupying 100 m² of that.

The main structure of the building utilises our preferred construction technology of timber and steel frame, with high density mineral wool insulation batts with in the studwork, this gives an unbelievable highly insulated building. The external windows and doors are all softwood with triple glazing for additional sound proofing and heat insulation. The heating is via a wet under floor heating system from Nu-Heat which is a very economical heating system. This heating system coupled with the high insultation values of the building itself, led to only £10 worth of gas being used during the three months of winter 2003/4.