Extension Architecture

In a borough where the average home sells for around £750,000 and a detached house for over £1.5 million, the cost of moving up is brutal. Stamp duty alone on a larger Elmbridge home can run past £37,000, before you've paid a single agent or solicitor. That one number changes how homeowners here think about space. The short video below shows the smarter alternative, and it's worth watching before you decide anything. See it from architects Elmbridge homeowners trust, then read on for why extending usually wins in this borough. Why the video is worth watching first Elmbridge covers Weybridge, Esher, Cobham, Walton-on-Thames and the villages around them, and the housing varies enormously, from riverside homes to substantial detached houses on generous plots. The video gives a real feel for the kind of homes here and what a well-designed extension can do to them. Seeing a finished project, rather than reading about one, makes the possibilities concrete. Watch it to understand w...

There's no single "best" home extension. The right one depends almost entirely on the house you own, and matching the two is where a good project starts. A terrace, a semi and a bungalow each want something different. Get that match right and the extension feels like it was always meant to be there. Get it wrong and you've spent heavily on the wrong project. A well-chosen home extension works with your house, not against it, so here's how to find the type that fits yours. Start with the house, not the budget The most common mistake is starting with a figure or a picture from a magazine. The better starting point is your property itself, its type, its plot, and what the ground floor needs to do. A terrace with a short garden and a side alley points one way. A semi with a long garden and a wide side gap points another. A detached house on a generous plot has the most options of all. The house narrows the sensible choices before you've thought about money or st...

London has thousands of architectural practices. That sounds like good news until you actually start looking, and the screen fills with directories, ads and polished portfolios that all look much the same. Narrowing that down to the right one for your home is the real task. This is a practical guide to finding and vetting architects in London in 2026, from where to look to the checks that genuinely matter before you appoint anyone. Where to actually start looking Forget a random internet search for a moment. There are two authoritative places to begin, and both are free. The first is the ARB register at architects-register.org.uk. This is the official list of everyone legally entitled to call themselves an architect in the UK, and it's where you verify that the person advising you actually holds the title. The second is the RIBA Find an Architect service, which matches you with Chartered Practices based on your project type, budget and location, drawing on thousands of accre...

Most homeowners think of a garage as a place to park, or more often, a place to store junk. But a garage is also one of the best places to add real space to a house because so much of the hard work is already done. A well-planned garage extension can go up, out, or over, and each direction suits a different need and budget. Here are the three routes, and how to pick the one that fits your home. Why the garage is such a good starting point A garage comes with things a normal extension has to build from scratch. Foundations, walls, a floor slab, and often services are already in place. That existing structure is why garage projects tend to be cheaper per square metre than a ground-floor extension on open land. You're paying mainly for the new structure, roofing and fit-out, rather than starting with a hole in the ground. So before you think about losing garden to a rear extension, it's worth asking what the garage you already have could become. There are three directions it can...

In a place where the average house sells for close to £870,000, the smartest way to get more space is rarely to move. It's to look up. The empty roof over a Wimbledon home is often the most valuable room the house doesn't yet have. But it's hard to picture a finished loft from an empty, sloping roof void. That's exactly why the short video below is worth watching. It shows what a loft conversion actually adds to a Wimbledon home, the real before and after, before you plan anything. Watch it from Architects Wimbledon , then read on to see how it works on SW19 houses. Why the video is worth your time first A loft conversion is one of those projects that's almost impossible to imagine from a plan. The dark, awkward roof space looks nothing like the bright bedroom and en-suite it becomes. The video closes that gap. It shows how the roof is transformed, where the dormer and stairs go, and how a storage void turns into a proper double bedroom. For a few minutes of watch...

If you own a 1930s semi in Chessington, there's a good chance the most valuable room in your house doesn't exist yet. It's sitting empty, up in the roof. The short video below shows exactly what that space can become, and it's worth a few minutes before you start planning anything. Seeing a real Chessington loft, rather than just reading about one, makes the possibilities click. Watch it here from Architect Chessington , then read on for how it works on KT9's streets. Why the video is worth watching first A loft conversion is hard to picture from a floor plan. It's much easier to understand when you can see the before and after: the cramped, dark roof void, and then the bright double bedroom with an en-suite that replaces it. The video walks through that transformation on the kind of house that fills Chessington, the classic 1930s hipped-roof semi. It shows how the awkward sloping roof becomes a proper room, and roughly where the stairs and dormer go. If you...

Most Victorian and Edwardian terraces in Haringey have a hidden feature at the back. A narrow rear projection, the "outrigger", that originally held the scullery or the bathroom, sticking out into the garden. That outrigger is the key to the best loft conversion these houses can have. Join a dormer over the main roof with one over the outrigger, and you get an L-shaped loft that delivers two proper rooms, not one. This overview from Architects Haringey is a good start, and here's why the L-shaped dormer suits the borough so well. What the outrigger gives you Walk around the back of a terrace in Crouch End, Muswell Hill or Wood Green and you'll see the shape clearly. The main body of the house, and then a lower wing projecting back, forming an L in plan. That rear wing is the outrigger, and crucially it has its own roof. An ordinary rear dormer only captures the space above the main roof. An L-shaped dormer captures both, wrapping around the corner to take in the ou...