Design Matters

A recent RIBA report entitled ‘Design Matters’¹ has revealed that only 1 in 4 people would choose to live in a new build house, and in some parts of the country, that fell as low as 1 in 5.

Meanwhile, the Guardian newspaper² noted that ‘at present, the planning system treats new developments like pollution, with the result that they often are’.

It is necessity borne out of a woefully inadequate housing stock that drives people toward bland development that will never delight in the same way as existing towns and villages.  Until we build attractive, larger houses, that aren’t rabbit hutches, and are constructed properly, people will, out of choice, continue to gravitate toward older stock, seeking to alter and extend it to meet their needs.

And it was in this manner that we were engaged by Clients in Bromley to extend their house to provide a light and airy, larger kitchen and dining room to overlook their garden.

Designing an attractive, positive addition to any house requires good design, particularly when the existing house is Edwardian, and delightfully period, and our Client was keen to avoid a ‘safe’ approach, aspiring instead a modern addition.

The proposed design is contemporary in appearance, and supported by the Planning Department who granted Planning Permission.  Work on site should commence in Spring 2019.

¹ Design Matters: RIBA report challenges perceptions of homes, 29.11.18

² The Guardian newspaper, Would you trust Roger Scuton to design your new home?, 25.11.18