THE HILL

This residential site is privately owned and runs along an east-west axis, with a single-storey-over-semi-basement Regency period house placed towards the main road to the west.

The Client required a new kitchen, utility room and additional living spaces to cater for their young family. They also wished to improve the relationship between the existing house and the generous garden to the rear.

There is a slope across the site from south to north with no immediate neighbour to the high side of the house. Our strategy therefore, was to build along the southern boundary wall. The build is separated from the existing house by a sunken courtyard in order to preserve a supply of natural light to windows in the rear of the existing house.

The extension appears as two interlocking wedges and is accessed from the main hallway via a bridge. The first wedge brings the user down to garden level and is stucco rendered to match the existing house. The second wedge releases large views down the garden and is dressed in hardwood  to reflect it’s more verdant aspect.

The southern boundary wall provides a datum for the louvered section to the rear elevation, and a bank of storage units which runs the length of the boundary within the extension.

Each shift in level is discernable via the choice of material underfoot; polished reinforced concrete carries the bridge and steps down into the living spaces, where timber was the Client’s preference. Outside timber decking abuts a shuttered concrete stairway and tiered planter garden, which leads down to a reclaimed, Liscannor stone patio at basement level.