The clients approached LSD Architects in connection with the renovation of their family house in the Maida Vale Conservation Area in West London.

Their brief consisted of three elements — a full width single storey rear extension to replace an existing one, internal refurbishment of their three storey detached house, and a single storey garden outbuilding.

The existing house had a number of issues that our designs sought to address. Internal condensation and damp issues due to low levels of insulation and ventilation, overheating in the summer months, low head heights and lack of connection with the garden.

Our design stripped the house back to its bones, and added a new mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery, a heat pump and solar panels, and upgrades to the fabric of the building — new windows, insulated plaster internally and externally, underfloor heating and high thermal mass elements.

The extension was conceived of as a light filled room open to the garden and to the sky. Expansive elements of glazing coupled with high levels of air tightness and exposed masonry floors and walls form a comfortable set of flexible internal spaces that connect existing parts of the house to nature.

The garden studio was conceived as a brutalist ruin, overgrown and sunken into the ground, providing a place of retreat and a space to house the clients’ possessions.

LSD Architects provided design and planning services.

Planning permission was granted by Westminster City Council in 2023.