FCBStudios were appointed by the Shakespeare Birth Place Trust to not only improve the visitor welcome of New Place and Nash's House, but to meet the access demands of a 21^st century audience and facilitate a new and enhanced way in which to view and experience the historic site and gardens.

The scheme focussed largely on the reinterpretation of the garden site where the home of William Shakespeare stood until its demolition in 1702, through an imaginative landscape proposal, but also through the conservation, re-working and extension of the Grade 1 listed Jacobean museum building.

The extension to Nash’s House sensitively provides additional exhibition space in a new oak framed structure nestled within the gap between two listed buildings, carefully preserving medieval archaeology beneath its footprint.

Seen very much as a transitional space between garden and museum, the extension has a raw and natural material palette, of roughly sawn and naturally stained semi-green oak frame structure, providing the backdrop to a family of more finely-crafted and finished joinery elements placed along the visitor route, designed to be touched and provide comfort through craft. 

The site re-opened to the public in August 2016 for the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.