Location: Richmond Upon Thames, London, U.K.

Status: Completed

Contractor: Touchstone Contractors

Facts :

• The garden extension has the heaviest steel our contractor has ever installed on a residential project: at 497mm depth.

• The cladding is to be hand-made by our team to give a burnished black finish.

• A structural stud wall was specified to lighten the load on our steelwork and the foundations, during a global steel shortage.

This project was important for helping us test the question: what is the future of our growing practice?

Designed during Covid, A House with 3 Additions was one of the last houses on this Richmond street to be extended, and one of the largest. The project was to extend the house at the rear, side and at the roof of the property taking advantage of the lockdown by pooling construction resources.

For this project we designed a pitched roof with large bi-folding doors for the garden extension to emphasise the feeling of light and space for the client, simultaneously improving the building's connection with the outside. The sloped rear dormer wall allowed us to lower the gutter and build in some bespoke indoor seating at roof level. The side extension opened up the first floor and second floors to include 3 new large bathrooms for the 5 bedroom house. The porch at the front of the property is a ghost of the rear garden extension, including a small taster of its hand-finished cladding.