Extension Architecture

  Most homeowners hire an architect without knowing what the next twelve months will look like. That uncertainty is where stress creeps in, because every stage involves a decision you did not know was coming. This guide walks through the stages in order, so you know what architects for house extensions will ask of you and when. Step One: What Happens on the First Call? The first conversation is about your house and your goals. Expect questions on the property type, the rooms you want to change and roughly when you would like to start. Before you call, write a short list under three headings: keep, change and never. Keep covers what you love about the house. Change covers what frustrates you. Never covers anything you refuse to give up, such as a mature tree or a south-facing garden. That list shapes the design faster than any mood board. Step Two: What Does a Site Assessment Involve? A site assessment gathers the facts about the existing house. It can happen in person or rem...

  Sutton has a quirk people only notice once they start planning. The borough is really two places. There's Cheam, with its Georgian villas and tight conservation controls. And there's the rest, Wallington, Rosehill, Belmont, St Helier, street after street of 1930s semis where extending is about as easy as it gets in London. Which Sutton your house sits in changes your extension's rules, its timeline, and sometimes what you're allowed to build at all. So before anything else, it's worth knowing which side you're on. If you're talking to architects sutton , this is the first thing worth pinning down. Why Sutton splits in two Sutton grew in layers. The old villages, Cheam and Carshalton especially, kept their historic character and picked up conservation protection over the years. The vast inter-war building boom then filled the rest of the borough with suburban semis. For daily life that makes no difference. For planning, it makes a real one. A Georgian ...

Fulham has always had good bones. The Victorian terraces of SW6 were built to last and most of them have. But good bones only take you so far when the ground floor layout was designed for 1890 and the family trying to live in it is doing so in 2025. The kitchen is too small. The side return sits empty. The loft does nothing. More Fulham homeowners than ever are choosing to fix this properly, with an architect led approach rather than a builder with a rough plan. Extension Architecture has completed 42 projects across Hammersmith and Fulham, covering W6, W12, and SW6. We are RIBA chartered and ARB registered. Our planning approval rate is 98%. If youre looking for architects in Fulham who have actually delivered results in this borough, those numbers are what genuine local experience looks like. Architects in Fulham for Period Conversions Who Understand Victorian and Edwardian Properties We specialise in period property conversions across SW6. We have completed 42 projects in Hammersm...

  Clapham has a quirk almost nobody mentions until it matters. The same postcode, SW4, is split between two different councils. Your house might be judged by Lambeth. Your neighbour across the common might answer to Wandsworth. And the two don't always agree. That one fact can change your extension's rules, its timeline, even what you're allowed to build. So before anything else in Clapham, you need to know which council is yours. If you're talking to clapham architects , this is the first thing worth pinning down. Why Clapham is split in the first place Clapham grew up straddling a boundary. Most of it sits in the London Borough of Lambeth, but the western side, around Clapham Common and towards Clapham Junction, falls into Wandsworth. For most of daily life that makes no difference. For planning, it makes a real one. The two boroughs run separate Local Plans, separate conservation area maps, and separate pre-application services, and they genuinely reach differen...

Croydon is one of the more extendable boroughs in London, but you'd never know it from the advice floating around online. Half of it is out of date, and a good chunk is just wrong. So before you plan anything, here are the myths worth clearing up, and what the rules actually say in 2026. If you're talking to croydon architects , these are the things to get straight first. Myth one: "Croydon has an Article 4, so I'll need full planning" This one sends people into the full application process when they often don't need to. Croydon has no borough-wide Article 4 direction that removes permitted development for ordinary extensions and lofts. What it does have is narrow, targeted stuff: Article 4 directions that stop houses becoming HMOs in certain wards, and two conservation areas, Chatsworth Road and The Waldrons, with their own directions covering roofs, front elevations and boundaries. Unless you're in one of those specific situations, your permitted develo...

A rear dormer is the cheap loft everyone knows. In Fulham, though, the one that actually transforms a Victorian terrace is the mansard, and it's worth understanding why before you default to the cheaper option. A mansard rebuilds the whole rear roof to near-vertical, so you get proper full-height rooms rather than a box with sloping edges. On these tall SW6 terraces, that's the difference between a usable loft and a cramped one. If you're weighing up Architects in Fulham for a loft, this is the choice that matters most. Here's how it breaks down. The Fulham terrace, and why its roof is good for this Fulham is Victorian terrace country. Streets of tall, narrow, bay-fronted houses with steeply pitched roofs and decent ridge height, exactly the shape that takes a loft well. The catch is the frontage. These houses are narrow, so a standard rear dormer, with its sloping sides, loses you usable floor right where you want to stand. On a wider house that's fine. On a narr...