HOW THOUGHT OUT CAREFUL DESIGN PAYS DIVIDENDS: Planning Success on Sensitive Site
The design of a contemporary extension to a private home located on greenbelt land and within a conservation area has been granted planning permission. The client’s brief was to provide a modern extension to the house with open plan rooms and a mezzanine study, creating additional space and an improved layout.
The house sits within a Close designed on plan as farmstead, built in c2005. Demolition of a small lean-to structure to the back of the house minimises loss of the original design, but in doing so allows the downstairs footprint to be openly expanded. The extension is deliberately modern in appearance, expressed as a contemporary addition to the house and of high quality architectural design.
Although large in size the extension footprint has been limited to within the rear line of neighbouring house to maintain the overall horse shoe arrangement of the Close. The floor level of the extension has been set down below that of the main house, following the natural fall of the rear garden and reducing the height and impact of the extension, this allows it to be subservient to the main house and next door property.
Glazed ‘links’ connect back to the original brick house providing a ‘light’ junction and definition between original and new. These links also allow the centre of the house to be flooded with natural daylight and form part of the double height space surrounding the raised mezzanine study. Other material choices such as brickwork, timber weather boarding and hung tiles are deliberately sympathetic to the original house.
Through careful thought out design taking in to account context, scale and materials, this project shows that high quality contemporary design can be respectful of a more traditional setting.
Following the successful planning approval the next phase of the project is the technical design stage and appointment of a builder.
Existing view to the rear of the house.
