Hasta La Ideas

A single-storey studio at the bottom of the garden of a semi-detached house in London creates a separation between work and domestic life for its residents.

The new layout by Ashton Porter Architects includes a courtyard garden between the house and studio that’s landscaped with timber decking, including hatches that open to reveal a sandpit, fire pit and paddling pool.

A glazed strip round the bottom of the studio’s wooden facade makes it appear to float above the floor, which is the same level inside as out on the decking.

Corrugated aluminium cladding on the side and rear elevations make reference to a typical garden shed.

This project was one of two winners of New London Architecture‘s Don’t Move, Improve! award. Read about the other winning project here and take a look at last year’s winner here.

Photography is by Andy Stagg.

Here’s more information about the project from Ashton Porter Architects:

Suburban Studio

A garden studio and refurbishment to a typical Victorian suburban house. The garden is transformed into a courtyard condition which is addressed by both the studio and the remodeled house.

Project Description

The existing house is a Victorian semi was built about 1890. The long plan form and the deep narrow site allowed for the opportunity to develop a different approach to the remodeling of the property than the typical suburban norm forced by later types.

It is typical to consolidate the development of semi-detached houses to the rear and side of the existing house, extending and increasing volume to the maximum extent allowable. However, we have taken a very different approach; it was realized that due to the size and depth of the garden plan there was potential to develop a completely different type of project and, one that required no planning permission.

A single storey detached studio is located at the extreme end of the garden away from the existing house. The rear of the existing house is remodeled by inverting the existing kitchen and dining room. The existing kitchen was to the rear of the house and this was repositioned to the centre of the house to form a hub and the dining room was relocated to the rear. By locating the dining room to the rear it meant that a habitable space (it also became a library as well) would address the newly formed private courtyard in the garden by the addition of the studio. The courtyard is bounded on 2 sides by high fences of bamboo and ivy respectively and on the other two sides by the bookend condition of the studio and library/ dining space.

Separation of Programme

With a move to working from home the separation and thresholds between domestic and workspace become a key consideration. Typically home workers occupy a spare bedroom or living room and are compromised with disruption from the domestic environment. By locating the workspace in a separate studio space these disadvantages are overcome, however there needs to be flexibility and adaptability with this approach. Whilst the studio addresses the garden as a floating fence to create separation it is also usable as a family space at weekends and evenings; the children are able to use the computers (with their own log-ins) as well as layout surface for homework and play.

The new dining room doubles up as a library but it also is able to become a workspace and most usefully a separate meeting room to the studio. Sliding walls give separation from the domestic realm.

Pop- up landscape

The courtyard condition created has a different language to the conventional suburban garden. It’s predominantly hard landscape is characterized by a timber surface, which can transform from formal public landscape into a children’s play area. A series of timber hatches lift to reveal a subterranean sandpit, a firepit and paddling pool with hot and cold plumbed water. The timber garden also houses a small circular lawn and the hidden pump and filter system for an adjacent pond.

Structure

The studio is constructed from stressed plywood insulated wall panels. On the front elevation addressing the garden the wall forms a structural truss to allow it to float above a low-level glass panel. From the garden this floating, and apparently solid, timber end wall creates a distinct separation to the studio space. The floor of the studio and the timber garden are at the same level; from within the studio this reads as a continuous surface as a reminder of the ambiguity of home and work space.

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The front elevation not only floats above ground with no visible supporting structure but it also connects to the side walls through a cantilever junction. This allows the low level glass to return along the side walls and means there is no visible supporting side wall form the garden elevation. There is no structural steel in either the floating elevation or the cantilevering side walls.

Materials

The predominantly timber cladding and surfaces borrow from the domestic language of the garden fence and shed. The corrugated aluminium cladding to the side and rear elevations of the studio make reference to the former corrugated metal garden structures of an Anderson shelter and prefabricated garages typical to the suburban landscape.

Climbing plants grow in the recesses of this mysterious steel fence, which conceals the entrance to a renovated coach house in north London.

Completed by London studio Moxon Architects, Murray Mews is now a residence with an entrance courtyard occupying the coach house’s former service yard.

Glazing behind the fenced facade and courtyard provides a view into the open-plan living room and kitchen, while an extended, projecting entranceway leads inside.

The building’s original concrete ceiling is retained on the ground floor, as are the existing steel joists.

Secure bicycle storage is provided in the entrance lobby, while bin stores are integrated into the rear of the steel fence.

We’ve published a few London extensions on Dezeen – see our earlier stories about a barrel-vaulted conservatory and an extension with a flower-covered roof.

Photography is by Edmund Sumner.

Here’s a full description from Ben Addy of Moxon Architects:

257 MWS / Murray Mews

This modest project comprises the renovation and extension of a coach house on Murray Mews in the London borough of Camden. Murray Mews comprises a uniquely varied and idiosyncratic, but also beautiful, collection of small scale domestic architecture – a concentration of robust one off houses and conversions that nonetheless retains a coherent charm.

The project brings new use to the service space at the front of the property as a private courtyard, while the internal spaces comprise a carefully composed mix of pre-existing and new elements. The utilitarian character of the building’s former function is retained and complemented by new insertions to provide for the requirements of a modern home.

The pre-existing boardmarked in-situ concrete ceiling is retained alongside exposed bolted steelwork and engineering brickwork. New structure and services are incorporated as background elements of volumes and planes.

In order to maintain security and privacy to the living areas, steel screens are used for the street facing boundary of the site. These screens also incorporate a bin storage area to reduce visual clutter at street level.

Behind the boundary screens a single storey lobby extension provides both a secure entrance space and cycle storage. Next to the lobby a private front courtyard space has been created to turn an otherwise disused private car parking space into provide external family / play space.

One of the fundamental characteristics of Murray Mews is the variety of attitudes to the streetside elevations. Proportions, fenestration and massing along the street frontage vary greatly, creating a rich vocabulary of material and structural methods along the length of the street.

The approach to boundaries also varies along the street; some houses are set back creating private courtyards, others built up to the kerb. These extensions are natural developments over time and are informal in architectural massing terms – this informality is what gives the road its identity and ongoing vitality, this project is intended to take its own identifiable place in this context.

The vigorous nature of the mews streetscape is complimented by the tough materiality and direct simplicity of the boundary wall. The monolithic nature of the wall matches the functional approach to brickwork and painted timber screen walls elsewhere in the mews.

The steel used in forming this boundary is stepped in plan to provide structural depth for stiffness while also providing opportunities for planting in the recessed portions of the wall, presenting a green face to the interior of the property.

Client / Private
Budget / Confidential
Stage / Completed

An oversailing glass roof and steel mesh curtain protect a two-storey extension and terrace at a historic Sydney house.

The double-height curtain provides shade and privacy but can be drawn back to open the house to the remodelled garden.

Australian architects Allen Jack+Cottier converted the High Victorian house in collaboration with designer Belinda Koopman, while the garden was redesigned by Vladimir Sitta.

The house formerly contained a private zoo, according to the architects.

Glass Loggia House was recently awarded two Houses magazine awards.

While this house uses a mesh curtain for cooling and privacy, we recently published a house that achieves the same using mist – see our earlier story here.

See also our previous story about a sports centre designed by Allen Jack+Cottier.

Photography is by Nic Bailey of Allen Jack+Cottier.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

Glass Loggia House wins two prestigious HOUSES Magazine awards for design excellence
18th July 2011

Allen Jack+Cottier, Belinda Koopman and Vladimir Sitta of Terragram, have been honoured among Australia’s best house, garden and apartment designers at the inaugural HOUSES magazine awards in Melbourne on Friday evening, for their work on Glass Loggia House in Glebe, NSW.

Their transformation of the dark rear living spaces and run down garden of a grand two storey High Victorian style residence in Sydney’s inner west won the Outside category, and also a High Commendation for House Alteration and Addition under 200 m2.

The judges noted “The approach of both the landscape architect and architect respects the remnants of the past, adding another layer to history. Through a suite of new spaces the house and garden is now more engaged with the people who live there… The walls, rooms, corridors, platforms, and curtains create a palpable ambiguity about what is inside and outside, old and new.”

The house was originally a private zoo, so when work started in 2003 Vladimir Sitta retained and reused building fabric remnants to construct a “Garden of Ghosts” with a polished concrete pool ‘fenced’ by a fish skeleton vitrine and plant filled moat.

Jim Koopman, Director – Architecture, Allen Jack+Cottier, said “ We conceived a double volume glass loggia sheltered on the west by an existing cypress stand to create a useable outdoor area in a way that responds to the grand scale of the existing building ,and was appropriate to the conservation area.

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“The loggia and new rooms are designed to exploit the ambiguities between what is inside and what is outside with a dramatic external steel mesh curtain shading the whole north- west facade, which operates to transform the loggia and garden spaces for different family functions.”

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See also:

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Brooks Avenue House by Bricault Design	Park Avenue South by Studioctopi	Elm & Willow House by Architects EAT

This five-towered residential extension to the orangery of an eighteenth century castle in Yvelines, France, is by architect Christian Pottgiesser.

Called Maison L, the house comprises five towers linked by a concrete canopy, forming roof terraces between them and shared living areas for family members underneath.

The towers are clad in white cement and framed by pine boards, while a dry stone wall wraps around the ground floor.

More residential extensions on Dezeen »

Here are some more details from the architects (in French):

Tours… de force. Généreuses excroissances 3D, Yvelines

L’histoire de cette maison ressemble à un long mûrissement, de ceux qui donnent les grands crus. En 2004, ses propriétaires projetant de s‘agrandir décident de faire appel à Christian Pottgiesser découvert dans une publication. Comme nombre de commanditaires privés, ils ont en tête des idées précises.

Pour leur famille de quatre enfants, ils souhaitent ajouter à la demeure qu’ils habitent déjà – sans doute l’ancienne orangerie d’un château XVIII ème siècle – une extension haute et d’un seul tenant, calée en limite ouest de parcelle pour masquer les vues de la propriété voisine sur leur jardin.

Six ans plus tard et une dizaine de projets proposés, étudiés, modifiés, la maison s’est terminée cet été et le jardin est en cours d’aménagement.

Fruit d’une patiente maïeutique, le programme a pris corps grâce à un processus itératif de longues discussions entre client et architecte, tenus de surcroît au respect de contraintes locales : trois périmètres des Monuments historiques, l’obligation d’un toit en bâtière, la conservation d’un réseau de relevage des eaux usées coupant en deux le jardin.

De tâtonnements en tâtonnements, de dessins en nouveaux désirs, la volonté de profiter d ‘espaces communs pour toute la famille et d’appartements privés pour chacun de ses membres s’est finalement imposée.

D’où la proposition finale à la fois limpide et surprenante : un soubassement puissant pour tous d’où émergent cinq petites tours dressées en totem, une pour chacun, enfants et parents compris, soit pour entrer dans le détail : un rez-de-chaussée connecté au petit côté ouest de la vieille bâtisse développé en forme d’amibe, l’architecte évoque en souriant «une forme molle ››, sur près de 47 m de longueur et plus ou moins 15 m de profondeur – qui enveloppe à l’image d’une rivière des rochers, sur près de 8 m de haut la base de trois des tours, et en dessert deux autres juste excentrées en périphérie.

Des murs admirables

De l’extérieur, l ’ensemble n’a pas vraiment d’équivalent, même s’il rappelle des images d’ltaIie, Lucques ou San Giminiano. Le socle conçu comme un enrochement assure une transition souple avec l’ancien.

Les murs de pierres sèches (dites de Cadaques) admirablement appareillée par une entreprise portugaise sont percés de grandes portes-fenêtres toute hauteur à châssis acier couleur rouille […]

Le toit, en cinquième façade très soignée, accessible par de petites pentes sur le flanc ouest, est planté d’espèces persistantes et sécurisé non par des rambardes, mais par un foisonnement de troncs de bambous fichés dans la terre ocre sombre d’où surgissent les «folies››.

Leurs murs sont pour tout dire, admirables : du béton brut, testé avec minutie, mélange de ciment blanc et de granulats gris clair, coffré à l’aide de planches de sapin clouées, de largeurs différentes (7,5, 12,5, 15, 17,5, 20, 22,5 cm), aux traces de joints préservées, sorte de matière native.

A la manœuvre, l’entreprise mentionnée plus haut. Son implication est au cœur de la dignité de cette architecture dont le ventre est plus prenant encore Le mieux est d’y pénétrer par la porte fenêtre taillée dans le pignon de la vieille maison. Se développe alors, sans rupture, un espace délié qui ne se découvre qu’en séquences.

Si un œil averti la repère presque aussitôt, il faut quelques minutes à celui qui l ‘est moins pour déceler la curieuse dynamique qui l’entraîne physiquement. Sol et plafond de béton en légère pente s’éloignent ou se rapprochent l’un de l’autre, distants de 2, 18 m à 4,50 selon le parcours, L’appel à cheminer est accentué par des murs courbes – de béton laissé brut à peine texturé ou peint de gris/or, de carmin, de rose ou de blanc- qui semblent omniprésents alors qu’ils ne représentent que 5% des parois verticales.

Insensiblement, ils conduisent aux pieds des tours surplombés d’étroites verrières. Chacune développe un programme similaire : dressing au rez-de-chaussée, salle de bain à l’étage, chambre en haut, et une terrasse au dessus pour les seuls père et mère qui profitent de surfaces plus amples que celles de leurs enfants (environ 63m2 sans compter leur terrasse, contre 38,8m2).

L’indépendance en famille

Ces manières de donjons n’ont pas de portes, seulement une entrée intégrant le dressing, l’escalier. L’accès à la tour des parents diffère. Il faut monter sur une sorte de podium à cinq marches -de béton brut toujours- dont la dernière dénuée de contre marche, ménage un vide rétro éclairé marquant brièvement une rupture entre les espaces semi-public et privé, un thème récurent dans l’oeuvre de l’architecte (maison Galvani à Paris, Archicréé N°315).

Chacun est ensuite chez soi et grimpe aux étages. L’escalier calé en périphérie et la salle d’eau sont percés de petites fenêtres offrant des vues choisies : inscrites au nu des façades, en chêne comme leurs ébrasements. Dans la chambre, la vaste baie partagée en trois pans (dont un oscillo-battant) ouvre un grand œil sur le paysage.

Chaque pièce (environ 8 m2 chacune) est un petit monde en soi comme l’architecte sait si bien les inventer – en particulier la salle de bain des parents calepinée de métal avec sa baignoire centrale incrustée dans le sol.

Partout un mélange de simplicité et de sophistication tant pour les matières mises en œuvre que pour l’échelle, basée sur celle du corps, et atmosphères lumineuses, dans une extrême attention portée aux enchaînements spatiaux.

Ces derniers ne sont jamais aussi frappants que de retour au rez-de-chaussée, dont quelques grands meubles révèlent l’ampleur enveloppante et la fluidité poursuivie dans le jardin par des sentiers tracés en de longues flaques de béton couleur cendre.

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De là, l’articulation et le positionnement dynamiques des tours sautent aux yeux comme leurs toits terrasses. Le PLU les imposait en bâtière, sauf si inférieures à 25 m2 de surface. Contrainte contournée par une solution aussi simple qu’élégante : un petit village de tours. JFP

See also:

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Extension in Paris by Bang Architectes	Extension in Norfolk by Acme	Extension in Poland by Neostudio Architekci

Clavienrossier’s extension to a stone house in Switzerland (top left) was our most popular this week, so here’s a selection of stories we’ve published about extensions for residential buildings. See all the stories »