ECA have recently designed and gained planning permission to update and improve a large detached family home built in an Arts and Crafts style within the Chilterns, Buckinghamshire.
The house had previously been extended in a piecemeal fashion, including a large conservatory, which lacked coherence and unity. ECA have worked to create a modern, open-plan and flexible living space focused around a generous kitchen space with a significantly improved outlook onto the beautiful wooded garden.
We have worked to incorporate a respectful Arts-and-Crafts influenced contemporary 3D form, celebrating the history of the house, while uniting the various elements of the rear of the house. Design work has also included re-visiting an existing loft conversion with an unattractive dormer, to re-work it into a gable to provide improved head-height with the addition of triangular dormers, reminiscent of classic ‘eyebrow’ dormers of the pre-war period.
The kitchen now occupies a ‘bay-window’ to the rear, celebrating the panoramic view to the garden that falls away to the rear. Generous bi-folding doors open up the rear corner of the living/dining space onto a new raised terrace, seamlessly blending the inside and outside.
We have created a series of forms and masses which show an evolved mass in-keeping with the balanced 1930s style of the original house, while creating an open-plan interior suitable for contemporary living styles.
We are looking forward to taking the project forward, and producing detailed Building Control drawings as we get ready to go on site!
