There is something I find quietly compelling about Farmoor. It is a young village — most of it built in the twentieth century — set on old land, the Thames floodplain west of Oxford where people have farmed and fished for millennia. Then in the 1960s the reservoir arrived, and suddenly this modest settlement had the largest single area of open water in Oxfordshire on its doorstep. That relationship between the built and the elemental — low rooflines against a wide sky, small homes looking out over a landscape shaped by water — is the kind of thing that makes an architect pay attention. At Gresford Architects, we work with homeowners in Farmoor who want their homes to respond to this setting with the same care and intelligence it deserves.
Award-winning Architects in Farmoor
Why Homeowners in Farmoor Choose Gresford
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we are now based at the Oxford Eco Centre on Osney Mead — just a few miles from Farmoor along the Thames corridor. We are RIBA Chartered and ARB registered, members of the Passivhaus Trust and The Green Register, and accredited by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. That combination of sustainability expertise and an understanding of context matters here, where Green Belt policy, floodplain considerations and the Cumnor Neighbourhood Plan all shape what is possible. Our Passivhaus home The Deerings won a RIBA East Award in 2018. I was a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the 2018 Building Design Awards and judged the British Homes Awards in 2025. Our work has featured in Dezeen, Grand Designs Magazine and The Modern House Journal — projects that show how ambitious design and environmental responsibility are the same discipline, not different ones.
Architectural Services for Homes in Farmoor
Farmoor sits within the parish of Cumnor, on the western edge of Oxford's Green Belt. The village was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes brought it into Oxfordshire, and its character still feels distinct from the city nearby. Much of the housing dates from the early to mid-twentieth century — bungalows and chalets set on generous plots, with a spacious, low-density layout where many properties have clear sightlines to the countryside beyond. A 1970s estate added two-storey homes, but the prevailing character remains low-rise, open and quietly rural. The Vale of White Horse District Council is the local planning authority, and the adopted Cumnor Neighbourhood Plan carries weight in determining applications across the parish.
Extension Design is often the most natural starting point for homes in Farmoor. Many of the village's bungalows and chalets were built to modest proportions — comfortable for their time, but rarely designed for the way families live now. A well-considered extension can transform a single-storey home without losing the low-profile character that defines Farmoor's streetscape. The challenge is to add space and light while respecting the generous gaps between buildings and the open views that make the village feel the way it does. That balance between ambition and restraint is something we find genuinely rewarding to work through.
Sustainable Design is our foundation for every project, and in Farmoor it takes on a particular logic. The floodplain setting means moisture management, ventilation and thermal performance are not abstract concerns — they are the daily reality of living beside a reservoir and a river. Orientation, natural light, fabric-first performance: these principles shape how a home feels to inhabit, and they matter more, not less, in a landscape defined by water and weather. PassivHaus Design takes that thinking to its most rigorous expression — superinsulation, triple glazing, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery — delivering homes where comfort is engineered into the fabric rather than bolted on as an afterthought.
For existing homes in Farmoor, particularly the older bungalows with solid walls and limited insulation, EnerPHit offers a certified route to dramatically improved energy performance. It is the Passivhaus Institute's retrofit standard, and it transforms how a home feels without altering its external appearance. Renovations more broadly give us the chance to rethink how a house works — opening up internal layouts, improving the connection between inside and garden, bringing a building built decades ago into line with how its owners live today.
The Green Belt around Farmoor constrains new development, but it does not prevent it entirely. Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework provides a route for exceptional homes in the countryside — dwellings justified by the quality of their architecture and their sensitivity to the landscape. New Build Design in this setting demands a thoughtful response to the wide, flat topography of the Thames valley, the proximity of the reservoir, and the low-rise character of the existing village. It is demanding work, and it produces the most considered results precisely because of those demands.
Farmoor is a village that grew up quietly beside the river, then found itself neighbour to one of Oxfordshire's most striking landscapes. If you are considering a project here — whether extending a bungalow, retrofitting for comfort, or building something new — we would welcome the conversation. Architecture in a place like this begins with understanding the land and the water, and designing from that.