London studio Hayhurst and Co used pale white larch to wrap walls and furnishings both inside and outside this beach house-inspired extension to a family residence in Hampstead, north London.

Hayhurst & Co added the two-storey extension to the rear of a four-storey Victorian property that had previously been converted into a pair of maisonettes. Named Hampstead Beach House, it replaces an older brickwork extension to provide extra rooms for the downstairs residence.

"Our clients wanted to reconfigure their home over the ground and first floors of the property to enable a better use of space for them and their young children," explained architect Nick Hayhurst.

The white-stained larch cladding covers the garden-facing elevation of the new structure. Window shutters are fronted with the same material, allowing them to camouflage with the wall, and a pair of large glass doors open the interior out to the garden.

A large family kitchen and dining room takes up the ground floor of the extension and features a tiled concrete floor that extends beyond the exterior wall to create a new patio in the garden.

Hayhurst describes this feature as "a rug" that "pulls the organisation of the internal and external areas together".

This concept is reinforced by the addition of larch benches and planters along the edge of the garden, which form a continuation of the larch-fronted cupboards that run along the edge of the kitchen.

A new double-height study was slotted into a space in the central section of the house. Lined internally with plywood, it benefits from a skylight overhead and can be closed off from the kitchen to provide a private workspace.

New spaces on the first floor allowed the addition of a second bathroom and an extra bedroom.

Photography is by Kilian O'Sullivan.

Here's a project description from Hayhurst and Co:

Hampstead Beach House

Hayhurst and Co. have extended and reorganised a house in north London to create a series of bright, well-connected spaces with new windows and light natural material finishes.

For the design and reconfiguration of this ground and first floor property in Hampstead, north London, Hayhurst and Co. started with the placement of a clear, clutter-free new space in the centre of the plan; like a rug in the middle of a room around which furniture and activities are organised. This rug - the tiled surface - extends to the outside and pulls the organisation of the internal and external areas together.

A white-stained larch cladding wraps around the inside and outside of the spaces to form seats, planting beds, storage areas and the kitchen units similar to the way that furniture is arranged around the perimeter of the rug in a traditional cellular room. The cladding extends to form the rear elevation of the extension and includes openings for windows with larch-clad shutters.

The reconfigured maisonette created a new kitchen, dining area, space for an armchair and has a ply-lined study in the middle of the plan lit from a skylight that can be closed off from the rest of the living areas to provide a private workspace.

Originally built as a single Victorian house, this four-storey property just south of Hampstead Heath had been converted into a pair of two-storey maisonettes in the 1970s and the lower floors extended to create extra space. These extensions created a series of dark, cellular spaces with little sense of fluidity between the existing rooms or connection to the garden.

Our clients wanted to reconfigure their home over the ground and first floors of the property to enable a better use of space for them and their young children. This involved creating a new, family-size kitchen to the ground floor with a direct relationship to the garden and rearranging the first floor spaces to provide a second bathroom and guest bedroom.

The property is located within a conservation area in the London Borough of Camden and is a typical example of Victorian terrace housing where the street frontage has retained its original character whilst the rear of the properties have undergone extension, alteration and adaption over time to suit the individual needs and demands of their occupants.

Our alterations to the property provided only 7m2 of new floor area – infilling the remaining return to the ground floor – but allowed the rear of the property to be opened up into a practical, full-width space without any significant loss to the rear garden. The alterations also included a separate study and created an additional bedroom to the first floor.

Architect: Hayhust and Co.
Structural Engineer: Iain Wright Associates
Contractor: Square Foot Solutions