Private Residence, Clapham

This 1,500sqft family house stands in a suburban neighbourhood in an established late Victorian suburb of Clapham.

The family’s requirement to double their existing accommodation resulted in a proposal for a basement, loft conversion and rear extension.

Continuing the practices ethos of creating a robust visual separation between ‘existing’ and ‘the new’ this intervention is conceived as a continues line containing a double height space linking kitchen to basement family area.

The two buildings are linked by a precisely expressed full-height glazed slot, defining the existing but remodelled elevations against the new extension.

Generous landscaped steps from the lower ground floor to the garden allow for maximum light penetration, and give the extension a weightlessness – avoiding traditional, less successful approaches to London basement designs.