Wimbledon House

A Large garden extension and re-modelling of a detached victorian cottage, to create a family dining and day room with a home work studio.  

The new owners, wanted to create two new living spaces over looking the landscaped garden at the rear of the house. The first was a garden dining room to be used for entertaining and family gatherings; the second, a studio space for working and writing.

The new garden room and studio extension are formed by ‘capturing’ the external garden space within a continuous transparent glass edge that runs the entire width of the house.  Its meandering path is formed by negotiating the new programme of spaces, the existing building, and the landscaping and trees that are contained between the site boundaries. Internally the ground floor spaces are modified to centre the kitchen at the heart of the new plan. 

The two new spaces are each located below delicate roof elements, with large sky lights, that appear to float within the landscape providing ‘shelter’ and creating an intimate sense of place below. These are held away from the existing building by horizontal glazing which spaces the new construction away from the old facades and allows daylight and sunlight to enter near the centre of the extended ground floor plan.

The frameless glazing is described only by reflections and the structural joints that secure it. The boundary between inside and outside has been replaced with ambiguity, illusion and a sense of connection. The new enclosure is a transitional space that programmatically links the new with the old and regenerates the existing building to respond to a contemporary way of living and working.

AJ Robin Ellis Small Project Award - 2nd Prize