Extension Architecture

  Here's something I notice on nearly every Bromley job. The family wants more space, they're thinking about moving, and out the back there's a long garden that the kids stopped playing in years ago. Half of it is lawn nobody mows for fun. The other half has a trampoline and a shed. That garden is where the extra room is. And on a Bromley semi, there's usually plenty of it to spare, which is the whole reason extending here works so well. If you're weighing up architects bromley homeowners actually use, this is the project that comes up most. Why Bromley suits it Bromley is the biggest London borough, and you can feel it in the plots. The 1930s semis that line Petts Wood, West Wickham, Hayes and Bromley Common were built with proper gardens behind them. Not the scrappy yards you get closer in. So when you push out the back, you're not giving up much. A four-metre rear extension on one of these houses still leaves a garden most inner-London families would envy....

Camberwell is full of unused bedrooms. They just happen to be sitting empty in the roof. Across SE5's Victorian terraces and villas, the loft is the single most valuable piece of space most owners aren't using, and converting it is the area's go-to way to add the bedroom a growing family needs. The trick is matching the right conversion to the particular shape of a Camberwell house. The short video below shows what these SE5 homes can become, worth watching first. See the kind of Camberwell home extensions that transform a period terrace, then read on for the loft conversion that suits them. The Camberwell home and its roof Camberwell's housing is architecturally rich: Georgian townhouses around the Grove, Victorian terraces and villas through Denmark Hill and Camberwell New Road, Edwardian semis further out. Almost all of it shares one feature, a generous roof void doing nothing. That void is the opportunity. These period homes were built with steep pitched roofs and...

Browse the Esher property market and a pattern jumps out. House after house, the standout feature isn't a grand staircase or a games room, it's the "open plan kitchen/dining room overlooking the garden." In KT10, that ground-floor transformation is what buyers want and sellers advertise. It almost always comes from one project: the single storey rear extension. Working with experienced architects in Esher means getting that extension right on the 1930s detached homes the town is built from. Here's why it's the defining Esher project. The Esher home that's made for it Beneath the headline mansions and multi-million-pound new-builds, the backbone of Esher's family market is the 1930s detached house. Wide, secluded plots across streets like Ember Lane, Chesterfield Drive and the West End area, three to five bedrooms, generous gardens, and typically £1 million to £1.9 million. These houses share a common flaw and a common opportunity. Built in an era of ...

Bromley is the largest London borough by area, and it shows in the houses. Generous 1930s semis with side garages, Edwardian villas on wide plots, and substantial detached homes in Bickley and Chislehurst. These are houses with room to grow in every direction. Which is exactly why the ambitious extension pays off here. The short video below gives a feel for Bromley's homes and what they can become, worth watching before you plan. See it from architects Bromley homeowners trust, then read on for why the borough's roomy stock rewards building bigger. Why the video is worth watching first Bromley's housing is defined by space, and that's hard to appreciate from a floor plan. The side gaps between semis, the depth of the gardens, the scale of the detached homes in Bickley, these are what open up the ambitious projects that tighter inner-London boroughs can't accommodate. The video shows the kind of homes the borough is built from and what a well-designed extension ...

A single storey extension lives or dies on five decisions, and none of them is the colour of the units or the tiles. They're the choices made on the drawing board, long before anything is built, and they're what separate an extension you love from one that merely adds square metres. Get these five right and the room works. Get them wrong and no finish will rescue it. A well-designed single story extension  rests on these decisions, so here they are, in order of importance . Choice one: flat roof or pitched The roof is the first and biggest decision, because it shapes the light, the ceiling and even the planning route. A flat roof is cheaper, keeps the height down, and crucially allows rooflights and lanterns that a pitched roof can't. A pitched roof costs more, around £4,000 to £7,000 extra, but gives a loftier, sometimes vaulted ceiling and suits period houses. There's a planning dimension too. Under permitted development, a flat roof is effectively limited to 3 metre...

Most homeowners can picture the finished kitchen. What they can't picture is the eight months in between, the surveys, the planning wait, the weeks of dust. This is that journey, told in order, for a typical Crouch End terrace. The short video below shows the kind of transformation these Haringey terraces achieve, worth watching first. See it from architects Haringey homeowners trust, then follow the project through from first call to finished room below. Month one: the brief and the survey It starts with a conversation. A family in a Victorian terrace off Ferme Park Road, two kids, a cramped galley kitchen cut off from the garden, wanting the open-plan kitchen-diner the house was crying out for. The first real work is a measured survey, usually a couple of weeks in. Someone records the house exactly, the side return width, the rear outrigger, the party walls, the drain runs. On a Crouch End terrace that side passage is typically just 0.9 to 1.5 metres wide, and it's the sing...