MW Architects added a large corner window and a section of floor-to-ceiling glazing to this pair of London house extensions, to make the occupants feel like they work and shower in the garden (+ slideshow).
The London studio was asked to create a new study and shower room for the Cecilia Road property – a brick terrace that sits within the St Mark's conservation area in Dalston, east London.
The architects selected dark-stained timber as the cladding for the pair of small extensions, helping them to resemble unobtrusive garden sheds.
The clients requested that the spaces have a good connection with the mature garden to the back of house, so the architects added large expanses of glazing as well as a concealed door.
"This is a very small but finely tuned garden extension," said the architects. "The project is set within St Mark's Conservation Area in Hackney, which necessitated a sensitive approach particularly regarding scale and materiality."
"Externally, the building is clad in black-stained timber in reference to the vernacular shed and garden buildings, which sit comfortably within the landscaping and flora."
The study is the larger of the two extensions and is partially sunken into the raised garden to match the existing ground floor of the house. It features a wide corner window that faces into the garden and a reclaimed oak sideboard that sits flush with the lawn.
Exposed brickwork helps to visually link the study interior with the original house, while raw concrete and pebble-textured tiles enclose the shower room that serves a pair of ground-floor bedrooms.
This space projects sideways from the house and features a long bay window that runs from the floor and onto the ceiling, to create the illusion of showering outdoors.
"It is highly textural; akin to showering under a waterfall on the edge of a cave looking out into the landscape," said the architects.
A chunky ventilation hatch in the outer wall of the shower room is covered in dark wood and disappears into the external cladding when shut. But the interior face is lined in copper, which will tarnish over time, in tune with the concrete surfaces.
The project was the runner up in the extensions category of the Don't Move Improve awards 2014, which awards the best of London's house extensions and renovations. Other 2014 winners included a new end to a 1960s housing block and a home with a combined bookshelf-staircase.
Photography is by French&Tye.
