Best Reader-Submitted Office Space Winner: Jane Archer

The winner of the Best Reader-Submitted Office Space in our Considered Design Awards is Jane Archer, who created an open and airy workspace in her renovated hundred-year-old corrugated tin home in the village of Amberley, in the Cotswolds in England. 

Archer’s home was first assembled around 100 years ago, an early prefab made of corrugated tin. But by the time she purchased it three years ago, it was in need of a major overhaul. The structural work was led by architect David Austin, and Archer designed the interiors. Though she has no formal design training, Archer comes “from a family of house obsessives,” as she puts it, and several of her relatives are interior designers and architects. 

For her tin home, Archer dreamed of a workspace that was clean and airy, with ample space to display her much-loved ceramics collection. With three grown sons and a husband (all glued to their computers when at home), as well as her own work to do, it was important to Archer that the office area be connected to the home’s large open living space. “In our previous home,” says Archer, “when all the family were around, the kitchen table resembled an Internet café.” In the new office, a long, slim desk accommodates three or four laptops at a time. 

Archer is fond of minimal interiors, and cites John Pawson, Conran, and Remodelista as sources of inspiration. A veteran of both London city life and time in the English countryside, Archer is fond of “the newer, cleaner country look that embraces both city and country life.” She filled the workspace with neutral paint colors, creating a blank slate to display her artwork. Archer has tried bolder colors in the past, but always tires of them: “I love color in other people’s houses,” she says.

Photography by Jane Archer.  

Above: The long, slim desk is made of MDF, painted in Farrow & Ball’s Pavilion Gray. Archer credits her builder, Piotr Metel, for translating her ideas into functional pieces.  

Above: The doors and baseboards are Farrow & Ball’s Cornforth White.

Above: Archer’s ceramics collection on floating shelves against a wall of Farrow & Ball’s Strong White.

Above: Archer purchased the dining table from Rossiters of Bath about 10 years ago; she believes it came from the Netherlands.

Above: A view from the dining table to the office space. The sculpture on the table is by Dan Fisher.

Above: The original finials on the corrugated roof are visible through the skylight.

See all 11 winners of the Remodelista Considered Design Awards here and look for each project profile to publish over the next several weeks.