Extension and reconfiguration

A modest extension that changed the whole house

About ten square metres of new floor area, used to reconnect the kitchen, family space and garden of an existing house.

Scope: Architecture, interior design
Added: About ten square metres
Sequence: Reorganise, then add

The house as it was, the decision that set the size of the addition, and what those ten metres bought.

01
As found

A house with the garden on the other side of a wall

We began with how the house was already being used, not with how much could be added.

The rear of the house before the work, with the garden beyond — Existing condition The garden was the best thing the property had, and the house met it through a single narrow door. Everything happening outside was happening out of sight of everything happening inside.

The kitchen before the work, with a breakfast bar and a single door to the garden — Existing kitchen A run of units, a breakfast bar across the width, and a downstand beam marking where the plan had already been opened up once before.

The existing kitchen looking through a doorway to a small back room used as a playroom — Existing, looking back This is the diagnosis. The family were living in two small rooms either side of a doorway, with the cooking in one and the children in the other, and no way to be in both at once. The problem was not floor area. It was that the area was divided in the wrong places.

02
The decision

Reorganise first. Add only what the plan still needs.

The existing rooms were reorganised first. Only then was any new floor area introduced, and about ten square metres turned out to be enough.

Had the addition come first, it would have been larger, more expensive, and it would have left the original division of the plan untouched behind it.

Extend, reconfigure, or move?

03
What it bought

Not area. Circulation, sightlines and a relationship to the garden

What the extension bought was a proper relationship between the kitchen, the family sitting space and the garden.

The family room and dining space looking out to the garden, with the kitchen visible to one side — Family room and dining The same footprint as the two small rooms, now one space with the wall gone and the beam left expressed. Two sets of sliding doors replace the single door, so the sofa and the table each have their own view out. Standing at the sink you can see the table, the garden and the pod at the end of it.

The kitchen, with a stone island and a long window framing the garden pod — Kitchen The window over the sink is set out to frame the pod rather than the fence, and the timber lining is returned around it so the opening reads as a deliberate picture. A rooflight above the run brings light to the deepest part of the plan, which was the darkest part of the house before.

04
The garden pod

Not every room needed to be in the house

A separate garden pod takes the study and the gym, which relieves the main house of both. It shares the material language of the extension and stays a distinct building.

The rear extension and the garden pod across the lawn, both clad in dark timber — Extension and pod together The same dark timber wraps the new work at both ends of the garden, which is what makes two small buildings read as one intervention. The white render of the original house is left plainly visible above it rather than disguised.

The completed extension and garden pod seen across the lawn on an overcast day — As built Built, planted and in use. The lawn between the two is the point of the arrangement: the study is a walk away from the house rather than a door away from the kitchen.

05
Outcome

Ten square metres, spent on the joins between rooms rather than on another room.

Services: Architecture · Interior design
Key moves: Rooms reorganised first, two rooms made one, window framing the pod, study and gym moved outside

Next project Rear extension and family-space transformation View