New bang up to date art deco extension

A fine 1930’s house has been extended and upgraded to create an improved room layout with better flow, and a larger Open Plan Kitchen Diner. The new design was partly inspired by the art deco movement, popular at the time of the house’s original construction and features ‘Crittall’ style feature doors and windows. Despite looking relatively simple there were several challenges to overcome.

We’ve created a little video series that documented the process from before design through to construction of this project. You can watch the videos on our YouTube channel, hope you like them > https://www.youtube.com/@ikonografikdesign

In the past the house had been extended with a couple of flat roofed garages [that were leaking], built at different times, these didn’t appear to have had much thought put into their layout and the rooms nearby were hard to use with convoluted routes to access rooms. The new design simplifies everything by reducing the number of rooms, and ways into the rooms, while increasing the overall size of the property. The new rooms are a large Open Plan Kitchen Diner + a new Utility Room, slotted into the old Kitchen + a new standalone Garage and Workshop. The new layout also has an improved connection with the exterior landscaping so everything just works better.

The original design was a single extension that included an attached garage and workshop, but we felt the large roof mass was too dominant and ‘in your face’. We also suggested that the client’s ideal scheme was too big, so we agreed to scale it back a bit to save money, resources and energy while still giving them what they want. This simple adjustment more than paid for our fees ! The final design features a detached garage, separated from the main house, that forms a smaller, less dominant roofscape and is less visually obtrusive.

‘Crittall’ style feature doors and windows in aluminium are going to be used, which should be a bit cheaper than genuine steel-framed Crittall glazing, that would have been used in the 1930’s, and should be more energy efficient. A feature lantern ‘frameless’ rooflight is also used to the rear extension. Aluminium coping tops off the walls, that is intended to be colour matched to the new aluminium doors.

Originally, Flemish bond brickwork was shown and specified for the new extension rear wall sections, which intended to give a slightly different look and feel and also provide a nice contrast to the existing render. However, this little design touch was changed on site to a regular stretch bond. Flemish bond means there is a long brick face then a short brick face then a long brick face etc…

A mixture of pitched roofs and flat roofs provide the aesthetic and required internal ceiling heights. The new flat roof features a polyurethane covering, not GRP, that can go brittle after a few years and doesn’t accommodate movement from the timber structure below as well. GRP can sometimes form hairline cracks and fail. Polyurethane is elastomeric, so has more built-in flex to accommodate movement and shouldn’t go brittle.

A large retaining wall is required on one side as the neighbours ground is higher up and their existing garage is very near the boundary line and new garage walls. The retaining wall means the ground and garage that are higher up are supported and safeguarded. Groundwater and structural waterproofing also needed to be considered to ensure underground water couldn’t enter the garage.

As clay soil and trees are nearby, the Structural Engineer advised that the new foundations needed to be quite deep + suspended ground floors needed to be used, to both the house and garage. This helps protect the new building work from the clay expanding and contracting during wet and dry weather spells, and also from the tree roots.

An industrial themed interior design scheme is being used with exposed steel beams painted in nice colour [with specialist intumescent paint fire protection] + a lovely plywood and Valchromat kitchen, from Wood and Wire. Externally everything is finished off nicely with granite and limestone paving.

A full 3D model was expressly requested and exported to BIMx software so the Clients could walk round their project and experience the design in VR before the building work started.

The Client works abroad so we held a few meetings remotely via Teams to help the design and decisions to move forward in good time. Planning Permission sailed through without any problems and was approved several weeks before the deadline, a new record !

On site now and nearly finished, keep an eye out for updates. Going to look stunning when it’s finished.