A Vision for Sky House, Wiltshire
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
An architect-led eco retrofit — and a bold interior scheme to match
Some projects arrive fully formed. The brief is clear, the ambition is high, and from the very first conversation you know that what you’re being asked to design is something worth doing properly.
Sky House, Wiltshire was one of those projects.
An extensive retrofit of a 1960s bungalow — reimagined structurally and architecturally by Klas Hyllén Architecture into a contemporary, low-energy family home — it presented an interior design brief that was genuinely exciting: a completely transformed living environment for a family who wanted something modern, characterful, and full of personality.
The architecture set the stage. The interiors were the story.
The design vision
Working alongside Klas Hyllén from an early stage, I developed an interior scheme that responded to both the architecture and the clients: an eclectic, contemporary mix that wears its colours confidently and doesn’t take itself too seriously.
The kitchen is the heart of it — soft, playful colours against a backdrop of clean lines and a vaulted ceiling, a space that feels generously proportioned and genuinely liveable. The living areas follow the same logic: considered, layered, with bookshelves and window seats that earn their place architecturally as much as functionally.
The bathrooms are where the scheme gets more expressive: bold tile choices, considered artwork, a sense that every surface has been thought about.
And then there’s the bookcase. One of the details I’m most pleased with on this project is a floor-to-ceiling bookcase that conceals a secret door through to an adjoining bedroom. It’s the kind of idea that only works if the rest of the room is confident enough to carry it — and here it does exactly that: functional, characterful, and just a little bit unexpected.
Throughout, the ambition was an interior that felt coherent without being rigid — a home with visual variety across its rooms that still reads as one thing.
RIBA recognition
In May 2026, Klas Hyllén Architecture received both a RIBA South West and Wessex Award and a RIBA South West and Wessex Sustainability Award for Sky House, Wiltshire — recognition of an architectural project that genuinely earns it.
Studio Wanda is credited as interior designer on the RIBA Journal award page, alongside a strong project team including Craft Construction, Blackwell Consultants, and Greengage. It’s a project pedigree that reflects the level of ambition the brief demanded.
The awards recognise the architecture and its sustainability performance — a retrofit that achieves exceptional airtightness figures and a genuinely low-energy home within a Cotswolds conservation area. But architecture and interior design don’t happen independently of each other, particularly on a project like this, where the interior scheme was developed in dialogue with the build from the outset.
On the renders
The visuals shown here are the design as I conceived and presented it: the scheme developed, refined, and agreed through the design process. They represent the thinking, the sourcing, the spatial logic, the colour relationships — and they’re what I want this project to be remembered for on these pages.
Interior design begins long before any paint goes on a wall. It begins with decisions.
Sky House, Wiltshire is a residential interior design project by Studio Wanda, in collaboration with Klas Hyllén Architecture. Studio Wanda is credited as interior designer on the 2026 RIBA South West and Wessex Award page. Visuals show the proposed interior design scheme.