HINDMANS HOUSE
Three-Storey Rear Extension & Reconfiguration
East Dulwich, London. Completed Summer 2021
INTRODUCTION
Hindmans House is an end-of-terrace Victorian house in East Dulwich, extended to the rear across three levels and reorganised throughout, completed in summer 2021.
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The house had changed little while its neighbours evolved around it. A series of small, piecemeal additions occupied the rear, leaving the interior disconnected from the garden and a good part of the plot doing very little.
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The project began by removing those later structures, so the original house could be read clearly again. A new rear extension was then introduced, stepping across three levels and completing a sequence that had remained unfinished along the terrace.
THE OUTCOME
The addition steps back as it rises. That profile came from negotiation as much as design: the scale was reduced and adjusted until it sat comfortably alongside neighbouring rear additions while staying secondary to the original house.
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Internally the plan moves from the more contained rooms at the front towards a generous kitchen and dining space at the rear. That space is the centre of daily life, opening directly onto the garden through full-height steel-framed glazing, and drawing light deep into a plan that previously had none at its middle.
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Above, the upper floors were reorganised so the house works as a family home. Three bedrooms and a shared bathroom occupy the first floor. The top floor is given over to a master suite, set apart from the activity below.
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Stepping an extension back as it rises is what makes a three-storey rear addition arguable on a terrace. It keeps the bulk low where it meets the neighbour, and it reads as subordinate from the garden rather than competing with the original roofline. The height was won by giving ground at the bottom.
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