Kentish Town Terrace

When the garden flat below our client's three-storey house became vacant, they jumped at the opportunity to integrate it into their family home.  

The family had been using the upper ground floor reception rooms for a kitchen and dining room which were rapidly becoming too small for their young family. We proposed re-purposing and extending the lower ground floor to create a new kitchen and dining room overlooking a paved external courtyard at the rear and a playroom at the front of the property. The upper ground reception rooms were refurbished as a sitting room and a reading space which leads on to a generous roof terrace that sits above the rear extension.

A large skylight on the roof terrace and an internal window from the new staircase enhance the visual connections between the new floor and the existing house, creating a sense of openness. The project achieves a light and simple internal aesthetic which relies on maximising neat storage solutions, such as a 'secret' utility cupboard concealed behind an openable bookcase and 1.2m deep drawers below the new stair for the client's wine collection.  

Externally, the rear extension and courtyard respond to its gritty urban context using a robust grey brick combined with bespoke galvanised guarding and accentuated rainwater goods.  The rear extension adds a new layer to the evolution of the terrace's rear elevation.

Photo credit Max Creasy