ARCHITECTURE _ The feature of most British towns and cities are the typical Victorian terraced houses: two or three floors, brick walls and sash windows. Developed during the Industrial Revolution successive housing booms, the Victorian houses are the most diffused house unit around London. But what is happening behind their refined bricky facades?
We have selected 5 examples of clever design solutions to extend and remodel the existing layout. A small courtyard garden or shared rear access could become a tiny kitchen, a new living room or fancy studio space. Find out how.
Bucolic corner
Cecilia Road by Matthew Wood Architects
This is a very small but finely tuned garden extension. The client used the existing space as a home office but wanted a little more space with a stronger connection to their beautiful garden. They also wanted to have a walk-in shower which feels like a shower in the garden. The architects extended the office into the garden so that the ground level finished level with the desk and created a frameless corner window. The shower, which projects discreetly sideways from the original space, has a 3-sided full height frameless glass corner and roof providing the sense of being outside without exposing the user.
Crystal box
White on White by Gianni Botsford
The client required a discreet, ‘jewel like’ study extending from the house into the garden fronting the Regent’s Canal. For the sake of privacy, the study was to be invisible from the other side of the canal. The aim, therefore, was to be “dematerialise” the room within the fabric of the existing white stucco garden elevation of the house, while creating a strong and distinctive interior.
Origami fascination
Lens House by Alison Brooks Architects
The extension was designed as a series of large apertures framed and connected by large trapezoidal planes. These openings capture light throughout the day, draw the garden into the house, and frame precise views of a spectacular walnut tree. Each plane of the scheme is either fully glazed or fully solid, there are no punched windows. This approach creates an architecture without mass and weight. It is more like the folded surfaces of origami. Where the side and rear projections converge, seven surfaces come together at one point.
Timber box
London Fields by SODA.
SODA. has created a design which juxtaposes the original Victorian features with a sleek, open-plan kitchen and family room - linked to the gardens via a new-build, timber-clad extension.
With ecological design at the top of the agenda, a sustainable, timber-clad extension was proposed to deliberately contrast yet compliment the original brickwork.
Tech space
Little Venice by DOSarchitects
In order to create a more family friendly space in the lower ground floor some of the internal partitions have been free up and a rear extension has been add to draw more natural light into the property.
The extension, consisting of a high tech stainless steel frame with glass inserts, becomes a bold addiction to the house which, we believe, further enhances the beauty of both architectures by virtue of their contrasting nature.
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