Tiled Extension, Norfolk

This proposal aims to completely reimagine a semi-detached house into a welcoming and spacious family home. The demanding brief asked us to incorporate a practical and social kitchen and dining space, separate utility, and a downstairs WC. Upstairs we needed to add an extra bedroom and improved family bathroom. This was a challenge, due to the restricted site.

The external form is a response to the internal layout and how the family intends to spend its time, ensuring a strong connection between the house and the garden. The enlarged kitchen and dining space is now the heart of the house with a skylight letting light deep into the plan.

With such an ambitious programme, it was crucial to breakdown the scale and amount of development & ensure that there is no detrimental impact on nearby residences. We achieved this by making visual references to land sloping roof forms found on other houses in the area. This allowed us to carve out a generous new stairwell, relocated to the very edge of the plan, which freed-up the rest of the layout to work more successfully. The entire building is proposed to be clad in wall hanging tiles, again a familiar material for the area, used more creatively to break down the mass.

Windows enhance both the visual connection and the scale of the space internally, whilst respecting the privacy of the neighbours with carefully controlled views, all tested in Virtual Reality, which made the whole design process more collaborative with the client and greatly assisted with the local planing authority.