During its colonial heyday, the bungalow – a word derived from the Hindi word “bangla” meaning “belonging to Bengal” – was a practical, elegant structure. Shuttered rooms provided refuge from tropical heat. Deep verandahs were the setting for sundowners with tea planters, tax collectors and fellow servants of the British Raj. Then the bungalow arrived in Britain – and things went downhill. The advent of cheap, pre-fabricated building materials led to a rash of “bungaloid” developments across countryside and coastline. By the 1960s bungalows caught on with retirees who appreciated their lack of stairs. A symbol of a carefree, expat existence came to epitomise all that was unimaginative, and frumpy, about British housing.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The loom on which Mann weaves her designs, inspired by Bauhaus colour theory and indigenous textile traditions. Photograph: Sophia Spring/The Observer

But is it time for a rethink? Contented bungalow-dweller Ptolemy Mann thinks so. “People can be snobbish about bungalows, but attitudes are changing. All you need to do is knock down a few walls and you have a cool open-plan interior,” says Mann, a textile designer and weaver who lives with her husband, Keith, a graphic designer. “I spent most of my working life in London and I’d always imagined moving to a remote, rural cottage,” she admits. But after a fruitless trawl of “picturesque but cramped properties on tiny plots”, Mann realised that a wide bungalow, set in a 1960s development in Sussex, was the right option for a pair of artists in search of somewhere to “extend and improve”.

The large garden, typical of so many bungalows, was the main draw: “In truth it was so overgrown that we didn’t know how big it was,” she says. But as they scythed through the brambles, Mann and her husband realised they had enough room to build a separate studio at the back, where a screen of silver birches brings an air of rural seclusion to the hillside setting. After years of renting expensive studios, Mann had found a peaceful place to live – and work. “We’re two minutes from the station, in the middle of a village, but we can’t see any other houses.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The green bedroom, featuring a flower painting by Mann’s late mother. Photograph: Sophia Spring/The Observer

Inside, the “granny” interior had been untouched for 30 years. “We set ourselves a challenge, to transform it by being creative and clever.” The only structural alterations were to knock through from sitting room to kitchen to create the open-plan living space which capitalises on its lateral layout. Out went the “brown and orange kitchen with its vinyl floor”. In came dove-grey Ikea cabinetry brightened by a Formica worktop “honouring the 60s vibe” and Chartreuse-yellow tiles from a range which Mann, who works as a colour consultant, designed for a Stoke-on-Trent manufacturer.

Elsewhere, colour and pattern have rekindled the midcentury spirit of the once-dowdy two-bedroom semi. Bedrooms hum with walls of hot coral and green offset by layers of the indigenous textiles – kanthas from India, songkets from Indonesia – that inspire Mann’s weavings. Keith laid the oak parquet, which “adds movement, weaving the rooms together”. Mann and Keith recently married and their merged belongings – from a Guzzini light to an Ercol daybed – reflect their shared enthusiasm for postwar design. “The house is descriptive of us without being over designed,” says Mann.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An Ercol chair in a corner of the sitting room. Photograph: Sophia Spring/The Observer

In the sitting room, the triptych of bright lithographs is by Herbert Bayer, a member of the Bauhaus movement that has influenced Mann since her days of colour-theory classes at the Royal College of Art. “I love the way they used colour in a modern, graphic way,” she says.

Mann’s textiles are instantly recognisable: artworks of variegated hues – ivory, fuchsia, violet – stretched over deep frames, chorus from plain walls. They have been described as “chromatic minimalism”. She has collaborated with architects of offices and libraries, and brought colour to hospitals such as St Mary’s in Paddington. “I don’t approach colour in a scientific way,” she says. “But it’s an extraordinary tool which can help to make people feel better.”

Mann has always enjoyed making functional pieces. An early champion was the Aram Store, in London, which sells her rugs, flatwoven into mesmerising stripes. Mann, who learned to weave at Central Saint Martins, is also a passionate champion of textiles as art, an area she feels is overlooked. Later this month she will be taking part in an exhibition at the New Art Centre, Wiltshire. “There’s still a perception that textiles are purely functional, but shows like this are changing things.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ptolemy Mann. Photograph: Sophia Spring/The Observer

Her studio is as distinctive as her work. Mann designed its triangular structure to echo the shape of the plot: “I was lucky to find a builder open to different ideas,” she says. “There’s not a right angle in here.”

The Most Real Thing is at the New Art Centre, Salisbury, from 15 September to 4 November (sculpture.uk.com; ptolemymann.com)

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