New homes / Extensions / Conversions / Remodelling

By providing a full-width, rear extension with an internal courtyard at lower-ground floor level we have been able to add a 2nd bedroom to the lower flat of our client's property.
The courtyard brings natural light and ventialtion into the rear bedroom and enclosed bathroom and a planted or pebble roof over the extension will improve the outlook from the rear of both properties.

Set back from the front parapet and using a bold metal finish, the additional floor melds into the existing context, rather than trying to imitate it.
Using discrete design cues, taken from the host building below, and with a subtle reflective sheen to the cladding, the volume of the new 2-bed flat connects with the existing structure and creates a visual transition between building and sky.

The existing (c.1980s) house suffers from a poor internal layout, with illogical positioning of the living spaces and bedrooms, inefficient circulation and poor physical and visual links with the outside.

By shifting the stairs and bisecting the floorplan to have bedrooms at one end and living areas at the other, the proposal will rectify this, increase internal natural light levels and improve connectivity with the external spaces.

We're also taking the opportunity to increase the thermal insulating performance of the existing structure, whilst improving the external appearance, by providing insulated rainscreen timber cladding over the existing reconstituted stone, and upgraded windows.

Window sizes and proportions relate more logically to the internal spaces, improve the internal natural light and link more appropriately with the garden and the views to the south.

With an ample driveway, we are also converting the double garage, to create a guest bedroom, gym and dedicated storage on the entrance level.

Our client wanted to increase the size of their home as much as was reasonable, to enable their family to enjoy the property and not have to relocate.

The intention is to replace an area of carpark on the north-facing slope of a hill with an energy efficient, highly sustainable, bermed house that melds into the landscape.

Large, light bedrooms that link naturally with the outside via large sliding doors are arranged along two wings that extend out from a central gallery/entrance hallway. The kitchen, dining and living spaces are in the NE corner benefiting from the primary views down the hillside and over two existing lakes, one of which will be utilized to provide a water-source heating system and reed bed filtration.

The open hallway draws the eye from the entrance area, through to full-height glazing onto the private courtyard and pond feature at the rear and has roof-glazing to counteract the fact that the house is largely submerged.

Courtyards and lightwells bring natural light into the rear and lower-floor areas of the house, whilst maintaining privacy from a nearby public footpath and allowing us to minimize the physical profile of the building. Planted walls and plentiful, openable glazing is used where possible to further improve internal air quality, passive ventilation and natural light.

The house’s visual impact is further reduced by the provision of a planted roof to continue the landscape over the building, which also regulates rainwater run-off and increases biodiversity on the site.

By shifting the existing rear garden retaining wall back, we have made space for two new gable projections, one replacing the existing hipped kitchen extension and the other filling the patio area, to accommodate a guest bedroom with en suite and an enlarged kitchen/dining room.

Both spaces will have full-height, vaulted ceilings, with glazing facing out onto the rear garden. Larger windows to the dining room will ensure a brightly-lit space, with slim tall windows to the bedroom to gain natural light, whilst allowing for increased privacy.

To break the visual scale of the additional form, we have split the materials of the two elements between ashlar stone to match the existing for the bedroom and natural slate to the walls of the kitchen/dining room and roofs.

Set within a copse in the corner of a country cottage garden, this treehouse accommodation is designed around an existing sycamore, with views through the trees to private fishponds to one side and Glastonbury Tor to the other.

Clad in Cedar shingles and stacked log walls with projecting eaves to emulate the shading canopies of the adjacent trees the living space opens onto a large, south-facing balcony, which cantilevers out to further increase the impact of the setting.

Steps up to the treehouse wind between the stems of the existing tree and angled timber posts continue the woodland aesthetic to blend the building into its setting.

The existing coach-house/workshop building has been used for many years as a pottery and is now to be refurbished and converted into a cosy living space for guests.

To maintain a feeling of security and retreat, we have minimized the size of wall glazing and substituted the reduced glazing with a clerestory glass strip and patent roof windows.

The character of the original workshop is to be retained as much as possible by lime-washing the rubble stone walls and replacing the existing metal roof with a black corrugated cement board and exposed timber rafters.

With some reconfiguring of the internal spaces of this existing property, the provision of a new master bedroom suite over the existing living room and a rear garden dining room, we have greatly improved the layout and functionality of this house in Kingston-upon-Thames.

Our clients wanted to accommodate their extended family to avoid the need to house them in a separate property and so the addition of floor area was critical to making the scheme work. The existing layout was confusing, disjointed and illogical, with the two sides of the house effectively split in two and with a dark internal stairwell.

We reconfigured the first floor to enable access to the new side bedroom extension and twisted the stairs around to allow more natural movement between the key areas of the property. By also opening-up the ground floor around the stairs, the large open-plan living spaces link with anew kids study space and the bedroom landing above.

Externally, considered use of materials that compliment, but do not replicated the existing and the provision of shadow joints between the old and the new work well to break up the external visual bulk of the house and the proposal was well received by the Planning Authority in a sensitive location.

Haringey Council approved our design for a new 600sq m house in Highgate.

Our clients had suffered 20 years of planning refusals until we took the project on. The contemporary house will feature sunken courtyard gardens and a swimming pool.

The site matches exactly the footprint of some derelict garages and hard standing and is surrounded by mature trees.

The sunken courtyard allows good levels of natural light into the lower floor spaces and enabled us to include a high proportion of the floor area below ground, to limit the impact on the neighbouring properties.

This kitchen/dining room extension to a West London semi-detached home was matched by a separate artist's studio in the garden.
Natural light, clean lines and minimalist detailing were priorities of the brief for this pair of residential additions.

This black timber annexe sits proudly within the original garden of its host cottage and provides light, warm living and sleeping spaces for family accommodation.

With integral, covered external terrace areas, efficient internal spaces and flexible access options, the direct link with the garden is maximised, whilst careful consideration of its orientation, position and glazing/doors ensures that privacy between the original cottage and its new neighbour is maintained.

Use of wood and materials warm to the eye and to touch, offsetting the cold clinical feel of sanitaryware and fittings.

By reducing the extent of tiling to the walls and floors, the shiny, hard character of the taps, mirrors and wall furniture etc integrate with cork tiling or oiled Birch plywood.

We designed a bespoke CNC-cut plywood system that was assembled on-site to house storage, vanity shelf and concealed WC cistern and extended the material to the full height of the wall and wrapped around the window reveals.

Replacement of an existing lean-to storage building, nestled into the corner of this private garden, within the Frome Conservation Area to house a small music studio.

With five separate neighbours to this tiny plot, we have suspended a planted roof between high stone garden walls to maximise the use of a dark corner of the garden, by nestling a 20m2 practice and recording space.

Pre-fabricated timber wall panels with independent, internal acoustic layers in-board of the existing thick stone walls and with large roof windows in-place of the restricted wall glazing maximises the acoustic performance of the building’s fabric, whilst providing comfortable levels of light internally.

A small, but well-honed replacement extension, sensitively designed to harmonise with the Nether Edge conservation area, with tall windows and corner rooflight to give a sense of loftiness to the small space.

Slate and timber elevations – light-looking front elevation with overhanging eaves to south-facing aspect, turning its back on large retaining boundary wall behind with vertical slate-hung walls and small windows.

We have wrapped a slate ‘cloak’ up and over large garage and living/studio spaces and projected over south-facing glazed walls with a planted terrace directly outside the first-floor studio space.

Angled windows further reduce the direct solar gain and improve privacy with the neighbouring property.

A side residential extension pushing the living space of the existing house out to an existing retaining wall to maximise the views over a small valley.

A step-back within the main elevation has been included for a small planting bed to bring light into the living space, whilst providing solar shading to the predominantly south-facing elevation during summer months.

A timber-clad sauna with corner window views down the valley and a slim, zinc roof with projecting eaves to shadow the sliding glass doors.

The potential to open the whole wall makes the most of the views, whilst extending the living space right up to the edge of the landscape.

By converting the existing hipped roof to 3 new gables, we were able to accommodate 3 good-sized bedrooms to this new first-floor, with optimum glazing looking out to rear/side garden.

Slim windows and roof windows to the front and entrance side of the property maintain privacy, whilst making beneficial use of north light to stairs, the small bedroom and hallways.

The ground floor was freed-up to allow for more versatile living spaces and a home study.

An enlarged living space directly addressing the garden and with a small internal courtyard to ensure comfortable light levels are maintained to the existing dining room and hallway area.

A large glazed, full-width gable extends the living space, with a new kitchen out into the garden.

With some resistance from the Planning Department we were eventually able to gain approval for this scheme, with some minor alterations from the initial proposal, to add a side, garden room extension, a new first floor bedroom with en suite and a large rear dormer to form a spacious loft room, with en suite shower room.

It was originally intended to extend the dormer down over the existing bathroom to accommodate the new stairs outside the main floorplan area, so as to minimize the impact of the stairs on the existing first floor. This was considered overdevelopment by the Planners and so a more standard arrangement was decided upon, to have the new stair running up over the existing flight.

The side extension projects out into the garden to provide an additional living space that forms a more deliberate link between inside and out. It includes large glazed areas, with deep window mullions to provide privacy screening from the adjacent road and to reduce direct sunlight into the space, whilst ensuring good levels of diffuse natural light.

Large, south-facing living rooms and bedrooms provide bright spaces directly addressing the front garden and capitalising on the fantastic views across the town and valley beyond.

Local Blue Lias stone at ground floor and on the large chimney stack offsets against the dark vertical strip wall cladding and slate roof. The dark forms, including angled eaves, shadowed glazing and set-backs serve to drop the visual form of the house back into the hillside and trees behind it, whilst also offering a subtle nod to the mining history of Radstock.

For shading to the south elevation and privacy to the north, we have projected the eaves over the large windows and created strong links between indoor and out on both floors, by including a large corner balcony to the master bedroom at the front and a bridge at the rear, linking to the raised garden behind.

The entrance, rear access, circulation and service rooms are set into the natural gradient of the site to the rear, but we have included a large, full-height window to the entrance hallway to provide north-light and natural ventilation.