Calais St

The property was a mid-terrace two storey house, set in a row of 6 similar properties, each originally designed with slight elevational differences. The house was typical of late 19th century domestic architecture with an austere red brick street frontage with decorative recessed brick panels and a parapet roof. At the rear the detailing was simpler, with red brick arches to window openings set within unadorned yellow London stock brickwork.

There was a substantial duo-pitch roof over the main house, with a mono-pitch to the rear offshoot. The original slates had also been replaced with concrete tiles.

The original timber sash windows at front had been replaced with unsympathetic uPVC versions in the last ten years. At the rear the windows had been replaced with equally inappropriate timber casements containing louvred glass sections. An ugly masonry and concrete block wall formed the front boundary onto the street.

The house was arranged at ground floor with two reception rooms alongside the hallway and stairwell, with a kitchen, WC and further reception room in the rear offshoot. The rear side return ran alongside the offshoot, and was a narrow and poor quality external space.

There were two bedrooms at the front of the first floor, with a WC, bathroom and two further small bedrooms at the rear above the rear reception room.
There was substantial loft space, accessible through an access hatch in the first floor landing.

The building was in an extremely poor state of repair. The front elevation subsided from right to left approximately 60mm as a result of a cellar under the entrance hall which created differential party wall foundations. This movement dated from the early decades of the building’s existence and was not considered to be ongoing.

The rear offshoot also subsided in the same direction, and large cracks opened up in the brick rear wall.). The report recommended that the offshoot was demolished and reconstructed.

The rear offshoot was demolished in its entirety and rebuilt with the same salvaged bricks. This was largely due to its existing structural defects, but also due to the ease of construction of the new open plan ground floor (without the extensive propping that would otherwise be required) and was also an opportunity to reset internal floor levels more advantageously and reposition fenestration without the visible changes in brickwork that would occur when new openings were set within existing walls.

At ground floor it was proposed to retain a front reception room, with the rear area as an open plan kitchen, dining and living space, extending into the side return, which was glazed over at a pitch to match the roof of the rear offshoot. The living space located at the rear benefitted from being remote from street traffic noise and close to the rear garden. Sliding doors were proposed for the rear wall to maximise the physical and visual link to the garden.

In order to mitigate the effects of restricted boundary height and changes to the floor levels above, the internal ground level of the building was lowered slightly, stepping down from the front door into the entrance hall, with a further step into the kitchen area .

At first floor an en-suite shower room was incorporated within the front bedroom. At the rear the existing separate WC and bathroom was combined into a larger single bathroom, and the two small rear bedrooms were combined into a single larger bedroom.

A large roof window was located above the first floor rear landing to permit daylight to penetrate into the centre of the plan, filtering down the stair to the kitchen and also through a glazed floor into the dining area.

The existing loft above the front of the house was converted into a bedroom and shower room. Two ‘conservation style’ low profile roof slope windows were located on the front roof slope with a further roof slope window and dark grey patinated zinc clad dormer on the rear roof slope.

An enlarged loft accessible from the bedroom below was installed in the roof space of the rebuilt rear offshoot, to compensate for the loss of the existing main loft.

All existing wall windows were replaced with new traditional timber sash windows. The first floor fenestration to the offshoot was a pair of timber sash windows with arched brickwork above .The existing concrete roof tiles were replaced with slates. The existing brick and blockwork front boundary wall was demolished, opening the small front yard area onto the pavement.