EVELYN ROAD HOUSE
Rear & Side Infill Extension with Loft Conversion
South Wimbledon, London. Completed 2020
INTRODUCTION
Evelyn Road House is a South Wimbledon family house extended to the rear and side, converted in the loft, and refurbished throughout, completed in 2020. The work added an open plan kitchen and dining space onto the garden, a formal living room, a separate TV room, a master suite and a playroom. Consented as a householder application submitted jointly with the neighbouring property.
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Studio MASS was appointed to a house made up of small, disconnected rooms. There was nowhere for the family to be together, which is the complaint that brings most owners of this house type to a practice in the first place.
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A rear extension and a side infill extension opened the ground floor. The kitchen now carries an island and breakfast bar, with a casual living and dining space beyond it facing the garden. Feature apex Crittall doors give direct access outside and set the character of the room.
THE OUTCOME
Freeing up space at the back allowed the front of the house to change use. The refurbishment created a formal living room and a separate TV room, neither of which the old plan could accommodate.
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The loft conversion adds a rear dormer and a roof pod, giving a master suite and a playroom above.
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The loft is as large as it is because the application was made jointly with the neighbours. Semi-detached and terraced pairs are frequently refused a full width rear dormer on the grounds that it unbalances the pair. A joint application removes that objection, since both roofs change in the same way at the same time.
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The lesson at Evelyn Road is that a planning constraint is sometimes a design question rather than a limit. The symmetry argument that usually reduces a loft conversion was answered by changing who applied, not by making the scheme smaller.
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