Hasta La Ideas

Dublin practice GKMP Architects has added two tiny extensions to a nineteenth century terraced house in the city, one of which incorporates a wooden window seat looking out onto the garden.

GKMP Architects was asked to renovate and extend the three-storey house in the south of Dublin by replacing an existing bedroom and scullery with an enlarged kitchen, dining room and play room.

Instead of adding an extensive new structure that would have imposed on the garden at the rear of the property, the architects proposed two single-storey extensions with a total footprint of just seven square metres.

“The main architectural problem we identified with the existing house was the great disproportion between living and sleeping areas,” architect Jennifer O’Donnell told Dezeen.

“Since the existing area of the house was considered sufficient to meet the needs of the family, we decided that the challenge in this case was to build as little as possible, to the greatest possible effect,” the architect added.

The new additions are constructed from concrete, which O’Donnell said “was chosen to act as a contemporary addition to the hard cement render of the existing rear facade.”

Bright blue tiles introduce a hit of colour and are used for the surface of a bench built into the concrete of the extension closest to the garden.

“The glazed Italian ceramic tiles were chosen in consultation with the clients and are used as a lining in those places where the wall thickens to form a seat or sill,” O’Donnell explained.

The tiles also appear inside the playroom, which adjoins the new kitchen and dining area and features windows that wrap around two sides.

A corner bench with upholstered sofa cushions is fitted below the windows, while new glazed double doors lead from this room out to the garden.

Both of the new extensions feature large skylights that introduce natural light into the open-plan lower ground floor.

The window seat in the dining area is built from iroko wood, which contrasts with the pale interior walls and frames views of the garden.

The architects also added an oak staircase to connect the new kitchen with an existing living room on the upper ground floor and a new den on the first floor.

The staircase is lined on one side with a bookcase and wraps around a utility room tucked away in an otherwise dark and redundant space at the centre of the house.

Photography is by Alice Clancy.

The architects sent us the following project description:

House Extension at Belmont Avenue, Donnybrook

This project involves the restoration and extension of a three-storey terrace house built towards the end of the 19th century, which has a red clay brick finish in a Flemish bond to the front elevation and a hard cement render finish to the rear. It is one of 6 identical terraced houses, grouped in handed pairs and with identical roof lines, eaves and architectural treatment both to the front and rear.

The existing layout of this house did not lend itself to providing kitchen/dining/living space that was proportional to the rest of the accommodation and so it was proposed to address this imbalance through modifications and a small addition to the existing house rather than through building a large extension in the rear garden.

The new addition consists of two small single-storey extensions, one to the rear of the main part of the house and the other to the end of the existing return on the footprint of the existing lean-to kitchen, that open the lower ground floor of the house to the garden. The new-build is made of cast in-situ concrete with blue glazed tiles.

Inside, a large corner window brings light into the play-room, while a new oak stairs forms a second, more direct connection between ground and first floor living spaces. A new utility space is built into the dark central section of the house, with the new stairway wrapping around and above it as a discrete element, hidden between the old house walls.

Architects: GKMP Architects
Contractor: Sheerin Construction
Engineer: David Maher & Associates

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London studio Hayhurst and Co. used pale white larch to wrap walls and furnishings both inside and outside this beach house-inspired extension to a family residence in Hampstead, north London.

Hayhurst & Co. added the two-storey extension to the rear of a four-storey Victorian property that had previously been converted into a pair of maisonettes. Named Hampstead Beach House, it replaces an older brickwork extension to provide extra rooms for the downstairs residence.

“Our clients wanted to reconfigure their home over the ground and first floors of the property to enable a better use of space for them and their young children,” explained architect Nick Hayhurst.

The white-stained larch cladding covers the garden-facing elevation of the new structure. Window shutters are fronted with the same material, allowing them to camouflage with the wall, and a pair of large glass doors open the interior out to the garden.

A large family kitchen and dining room takes up the ground floor of the extension and features a tiled concrete floor that extends beyond the exterior wall to create a new patio in the garden.

Hayhurst describes this feature as “a rug” that “pulls the organisation of the internal and external areas together”.

This concept is reinforced by the addition of larch benches and planters along the edge of the garden, which form a continuation of the larch-fronted cupboards that run along the edge of the kitchen.

A new double-height study was slotted into a space in the central section of the house. Lined internally with plywood, it benefits from a skylight overhead and can be closed off from the kitchen to provide a private workspace.

New spaces on the first floor allowed the addition of a second bathroom and an extra bedroom.

Photography is by Kilian O’Sullivan.

Here’s a project description from Hayhurst and Co:

Hampstead Beach House

Hayhurst and Co. have extended and reorganised a house in north London to create a series of bright, well-connected spaces with new windows and light natural material finishes.

For the design and reconfiguration of this ground and first floor property in Hampstead, north London, Hayhurst and Co. started with the placement of a clear, clutter-free new space in the centre of the plan; like a rug in the middle of a room around which furniture and activities are organised. This rug – the tiled surface – extends to the outside and pulls the organisation of the internal and external areas together.

A white-stained larch cladding wraps around the inside and outside of the spaces to form seats, planting beds, storage areas and the kitchen units similar to the way that furniture is arranged around the perimeter of the rug in a traditional cellular room. The cladding extends to form the rear elevation of the extension and includes openings for windows with larch-clad shutters.

The reconfigured maisonette created a new kitchen, dining area, space for an armchair and has a ply-lined study in the middle of the plan lit from a skylight that can be closed off from the rest of the living areas to provide a private workspace.

Originally built as a single Victorian house, this four-storey property just south of Hampstead Heath had been converted into a pair of two-storey maisonettes in the 1970s and the lower floors extended to create extra space. These extensions created a series of dark, cellular spaces with little sense of fluidity between the existing rooms or connection to the garden.

Our clients wanted to reconfigure their home over the ground and first floors of the property to enable a better use of space for them and their young children. This involved creating a new, family-size kitchen to the ground floor with a direct relationship to the garden and rearranging the first floor spaces to provide a second bathroom and guest bedroom.

The property is located within a conservation area in the London Borough of Camden and is a typical example of Victorian terrace housing where the street frontage has retained its original character whilst the rear of the properties have undergone extension, alteration and adaption over time to suit the individual needs and demands of their occupants.

Our alterations to the property provided only 7m2 of new floor area – infilling the remaining return to the ground floor – but allowed the rear of the property to be opened up into a practical, full-width space without any significant loss to the rear garden. The alterations also included a separate study and created an additional bedroom to the first floor.

Architect: Hayhust and Co.
Structural Engineer: Iain Wright Associates
Contractor: Square Foot Solutions

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Narrow slices of glazing break up the plain white facade of this residential extension in west London by Guard Tillman Pollock Architects, helping to visually separate it from the existing house.

Guard Tillman Pollock Architects added the two-storey extension to an Italian-influenced residence from the nineteenth century, which previously received little natural light as a result of small windows.

Rather than placing an extension at the north-facing rear of the building, where it would have spent most of the day in shadow, the architects designed a structure to sit alongside the original house and added large expanses of glazing to bring daylight through.

Two strips of glazing wrap over the top of the extension to create combined windows and skylights. One also forms a junction between the new and old structures.

“The arrangement of windows and rooflights allows sunlight to be reflected off the flank wall of the existing house and into the kitchen and dining room of the new extension,” architect Steven Pollock told Dezeen.

A change of level between the front and back of the site gives the extension two ground-level storeys. A pair of new doorways provide a link to the main house on the lower ground-floor level, while a glass bridge makes a connection on the floor above.

A kitchen and double-height dining area occupy the lower floor and feature sliding doors that open the space out to the garden. The floor above contains a study, as well as a small entrance lobby and cloakroom.

Photography is by Gareth Gardner.

Read on for a project description from Guard Tillman Pollock Architects:

Extension to Grade II Listed House, West London

The owners of this elegant semi-detached villa in west London wanted to extend the accommodation to create a better connection to the garden.

The original house is a listed structure that was constructed in the mid-nineteenth century as part of a number of similar Italianate detached and semi-detached villas. These Italianate villas have a small window to wall ratio compared to normal London houses. While this creates an elegant facade, the interiors of the houses are quite dark with minimal visual connection to the outside.

The rear of this house is north facing so much of the back garden is in shadow during the day. An extension at the rear of the house would receive little or no sunlight. The new extension is therefore built to the side of the house and separated from the original house by a glazed slot, preserving the original footprint of the villa and delineating the new from the old.

The early morning mid-winter sun rising over the neighbouring buildings is in alignment with the glass slot. Throughout the year the glass slot provides morning sun to the dining room. As the extension is positioned on the south-west side of the house, afternoon and evening sunlight is bounced off the flank wall of the original building through the glass slot to enliven the living space below.

The new extension is connected to the entrance hall by a glass bridge at ground floor level and linked to the main staircase at lower ground level. The lower floor of the extension provides a new light-filled kitchen and double-height dining area, opening onto the rear garden. Above the dining area, a galleried study overlooks the rear gardens and exploits the longer diagonal views. A small reception area and cloakroom is provided on the ground floor at the front of the new extension.

External sliding glass doors in the dining area are arranged to slide back into the walls so that the double height space can be opened up to the garden. The chimney breast acts as the focal point of the room and also helps to control overlooking from rear windows of adjoining properties.

At certain times of the day shafts of sunlight on the chimney breast in the double-height dining space contrast with the shafts of reflected light from the flank wall of the original house, the paths of these shafts of sunlight changing with the seasons.

Architects: Guard Tillman Pollock Architects
Location: London, U.K.
Structural design: Michael Biagent, Orla Kelly
Contractor: Chalk Hill Construction
Project Area: Original house: 264m2 Extension: 96m2

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Paris studio Marchi Architectes layered up timber slats of different thicknesses and proportions to give an irregular texture to the walls of this sunken house extension in Normandy, France (+ slideshow).

Adélaïde and Nicola Marchi designed the single-storey Black House to accommodate a new open-plan kitchen, dining room and lounge for an existing family house, allowing the owners to reconfigure their current layout.

The structure extends from the rear of the property, but is set at the lowest level of the site so that it is barely noticeable from a road running alongside.

Black-stained timber cladding covers the walls and roof of the extension, allowing it to look like the shadow of the main house, while the textured surface was designed to help it blend in with the surrounding woodland.

“The dark timber cladding plays with light and shadows so that the extension disappears in the shade of the forest around,” said the architects.

Shutters are clad with the same material and can be slid across the windows to screen the interior.

Inside, a two-stage staircase folds around one corner to create routes into the extension from different storeys of the house. There’s also an extra door leading straight out to the garden.

The kitchen is tucked into the corner beneath the staircase, while the dining table sits in the middle of the space and the living area is positioned at the far end.

A pair of skylights help to distribute natural light through the room and heating is provided by a wood-burning stove.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Read on for a short project description from Adélaïde and Nicola Marchi:

Black House

The client wanted to move the living spaces to a more open and transparent space, in order to free some spaces in the old house. A unique volume is set up, arranging kitchen, living and dining room. From the interior, wide views are offered to the garden and landscape.

The extension is connected to the existing house as a structurally light volume, as not to overload the foundations. The project is minimal: the volume is integrated in the surrounding, partially recessed in the topography of the ground to stand lower than the street level.

The dark timber cladding plays with light and shadows so that the extension disappears in the shade of the forest around.

Program: Housing
Size: 80 m2
Date of design: 2010-2013
Date of completion: 2013

Project team: Olivia Massimi, Marcello Orlandini
Client: Private
Consultants: Baldeschi, SBH, Valentin, Vauchel-Louvel

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in the forest by Marchi Architectes appeared first on Dezeen.

London studio Denizen Works has overhauled a cottage in Scotland‘s Outer Hebrides by rebuilding the original structure and adding two extensions modelled on agricultural sheds (+ slideshow).

Architect Murray Kerr of Denizen Works completed this project for his parents, who had bought an ageing house on the Isle of Tiree and planned to renovate it and live there for five months of the year.

After discovering the original structure was beyond repair, the architect had to instead rebuild it before adding two new wings that are designed to reference the local agricultural vernacular.

“The concept was to create a traditional cottage with agricultural sheds around it, as if the building had grown organically over time,” Kerr told Dezeen.

The stone cottage now functions as a guest house, with bedrooms on both floors and a generous living room.

Behind it, a bunker-like structure is used as the main house. The exterior of this building is made from galvanised steel and corrugated fibre cement, and it has a curved roof profile.

The upper level houses a large timber-lined kitchen and dining room, while stairs lead down to an en suite bedroom that is slightly sunken into the ground.

“The idea was to create a robust outside, contrasting with the light and airy space inside,” said Kerr.

The base of the structure is created from the same stone as the cottage walls, helping to tie the two structures together. “After rebuilding the old house, we had some stones left over, so we reused them elsewhere,” added the architect.

A third wing was also added and serves as a utility area. It contains a laundry area, a wet room where residents can clean sand off their shoes and a studio that children can use for painting.

Photography is by David Barbour.

Here’s a project description from Denizen Works:

House No.7, Heanish, Isle of Tiree, Scotland

Introduction

We were commissioned in October 2010 to produce a design for a new house on the site of a ruined, B-listed black-house on the Isle of Tiree on the west coast of Scotland. We developed a concept that comprises two houses, a Living-house and a Guesthouse, linked by a Utility wing. Together the elements combine to create a bold insertion into the landscape while reflecting the character and heritage of the island.

In keeping with the philosophy of Denizen Works, the language of the house was driven by an examination of the local vernacular, materials and building forms with the architecture of the Living-house and Utility taking their lead from the local agricultural buildings combining soft roof forms, chimneys and corrugated cladding.

Setting off the utilitarian accommodation is the Guesthouse with its deep-set stone walls, black and white palette and black tarred roof resulting in a building that is tied to the landscape and unmistakably of Tiree.

The Site

Tiree is the western most of the Inner Hebrides, accessible from the mainland via ferry services from Oban or by air from Glasgow airport and enjoys more hours of sunlight than any other location in the British Isles. At around 7.8 ha and with a population of around 750, the island is highly fertile providing fantastic grazing land for livestock due to the mineral rich ‘machair’ that covers the land mass.

Located on the southern coast of the island, House No.7 is accessed by a grass track and enjoys fantastic views of Duin bay to the south and a typical Tiree landward aspect of lightly undulating machair and traditional housing settlements.

Like most places on Tiree, the siting of the house is very exposed, with no natural land mass or vegetation to provide shelter from the wind. The design challenge, given the exposure to the elements, was to create a design that maximises shelter from the wind giving places of shelter on all sides, while allowing sunlight to penetrate and warm the house inside and out while utilising the breeze to aid natural ventilation.

Architecture

The Living-house, containing living/kitchen/dining spaces with master bedroom below, functions as the social heart of the new home. The living space is a half level up from the entrance with the master bedroom sunk into the landscape with views to the sheltered garden. Access to the garden, created by the removal of the sand blow build up around the existing cottage, and the beach is from the southern end of the space.

The Guesthouse is constructed in the stone from the original cottage containing two guest bedrooms, a bathroom and a quiet snug/entertaining room with an open link to the main hall in the utility.

The Utility is the functional heart of the building containing laundry facilities along with a wet room in which to clean off the sand from the beach or fish scales from the sea and a studio/lego room for painting and play. This third element, with the feel of a covered outdoor space, seamlessly links the other elements of the house allowing family and guests to interact as they choose.

The interior of the house offers a counterpoint to the robust architecture of the exterior, filled with natural light; the finishes are intentionally robust with inspiration for the palette taken from local Tiree architecture. Heating is provided through an air-source heat pump.

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on the Isle of Tiree by Denizen Works appeared first on Dezeen.