Queen’s Park House

Location

Queen’s Park, London

Client

Private

Year

2022

Located in the City of Westminster, this project transforms a small ground floor garden flat into a two bed family home with a dining room, home office, open plan living room and kitchen and a new dedicated private entrance via a courtyard off the street. The existing building is in the Queens Park Conservation area , a large and well-preserved area of picturesque Victorian cottage-style housing with gothic detailing. As such our starting point for the massing of the scheme was driven by conservation and a desire that our proposal would preserve the original external walls along with its original cast iron drain pipes. This approach minimises demolition works, is more sustainable and minimises disruption for surrounding properties.

To allow the original scale, pattern and rhythm of the existing building to be visible and to create a greater connection with the garden, the new east and west elevations are predominantly glazed, framed with yellow London stock bricks to match the colour and texture of the existing walls. As a nod to the gothic detailing of the original house the rear brick will be laid in a dog-tooth pattern creating a contemporary interpretation of the ornate Victorian brickwork.

The extension will incorporate the existing brick garden wall on its southern edge with a lightweight timber frame hipped roof spanning between it and the existing house. The roof will be Welsh slate to match the existing, interrupted by large skylights.