House on Nutley Road

Refurbishment and extension of a 1950s detached house.

Constructed in the 1950’s, the existing house had been extended twice in the last 20 years in an ad hoc manner leading to poor spatial layout internally. Keen to maximise the potential of the house for the comfort and enjoyment of their family, the client brief called for a complete reorganisation and refurbishment of the house, along with a new extension allowing them to connect better with the garden. Our proposal sought to strip back all extraneous elements and accretions resulting from previous extensions, resolving to provide instead a more fluid and coherent organisation.

The existing ground floor layout included a north-facing conservatory and had a poor relationship with the garden.  Our proposal removes the extension, re-modelling the ground floor plan and extending it to take advantage of available daylight. A more immediate relationship is established with the garden beyond. 

Typical of many homes of the period the house had no insulation and as part of the works the clients wanted to bring the house up to current building regulations. To meet these requirements our solution proposes externally insulating the house, removing all projecting elements from the façade and formed a new pitched zinc roof built off the existing structure and providing additional bedroom space within the new roof space.