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Architectural sketch plan of two identical semi-detached houses with large bay windows at the front and two separate fenced entrances
Photorealistic architectural rendering of the mirrored pair of semi-detached houses from street view with materials and colours clearly demonstrated with the wooden front fence and gate, differing brick colour around the window frames and white roof trimming details
Side street view photorealistic architectural rendering of the proposal for the pair of semi-detached houses to demonstrate how seamless it will appear on the streetscape, as if it was always there
RIBA Registered Architect's layout drawings of the existing ground floor which consitituted of a unfriendly layout with a large living room space but very small kitchen area
Brilliant architect's use of design to propose on the ground floor a large open plan space including the living area, formal dining and kitchen leading directly to the rear garden. Addional provisions have been included on the ground floor such as a toilet and cycle storage at the front of the property
Exisiting first floor plan which previously only accomodated for three very small rooms and one bathroom
RIBA Chartered Architect's proposal to turn 3 awkwardly shaped rooms into now two 2-bedroom houses with one bathroom

Sustainable, well-proportioned new home created by filling in what always seemed like the missing half of a pair of semi-detached houses

Location

Haddon Road SM1

Local Authority

Sutton Council

Plot Type

Suburban

Project Type

New Build House

Accomplishment

A large extension to create a separate new home

Services by Urbanist Architecture

Project Architect, Planning Consultant, Lead Consultant

Collaborators

EAL Consult, Cole Easdon, Border Archaeology, t16

Challenge

Call this the case of the incomplete house.

Picture a large house that looks more like a pair of semi-detached homes, with two pitched roofs. Next to it is a house that has one of the same pitched roofs, and then a deeply set-back two-storey side section that looks like an ungainly extension but was part of the original building. It all almost feels designed to provoke people who like things to be symmetrical. At the same time, it didn’t strange or special enough to be an interesting part of the local streetscape.

Our clients’ aim was to fill in the “missing” half of the building, and in the process turn one home into two, making a contribution to the local housing supply without making the street feel any more crowded. But would it be as simple as that?

Before & After

RIBA Registered Architect's layout drawings of the existing ground floor which consitituted of a unfriendly layout with a large living room space but very small kitchen area

Solution

Even with the strange side area, the existing house only had one full-sized bedroom, plus two tiny rooms that were well under the national minimum space standards. That suggested that simply mirroring the main part of the house would create two very small homes. So while at the front the “missing” section was filled in, at the back more was needed. A two-storey outrigger (the big rear section of a Victorian house) and a single-storey extension were added to both the existing house and the new half.

With those changes, there was enough space for two 2-bedroom homes, a significant improvement over the existing property. Sutton council rightly has high aspirations for the sustainability of new homes, so we incorporated air-source heat pumps and a green roof. Plus, because these houses are near the local shopping centre and a short walk from Thameslink, which whisks you up to central London and beyond, this is all car-free.

Taking one undersized home and turning it into a pair of two-bedroom houses that fully meet space standards without making it look like you’ve squeezed a building in is a great way to add homes painlessly. There aren’t that many opportunities to do this, but it’s important we make the most of those that do exist.

Photorealistic architectural rendering of the mirrored pair of semi-detached houses from street view with materials and colours clearly demonstrated with the wooden front fence and gate, differing brick colour around the window frames and white roof trimming details

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