Our job as architects was to transform a charming, but rather down-at-heel 19th century Chelsea house into a comfortable and practical family home with modern services, to meet our clients' needs.
The layout of the house was awkward and not responsive to subtle change. There was a fundamental flaw with the plan form. This had been inherited from an earlier extension added some thirty years after construction in 1905, which while almost doubling its size, had given the house a rather confusing and lopsided interior with poorly proportioned rooms.
The original staircase as a result divided the house rather than uniting it; for example, the stair needed to be carefully navigated past to get to the master bedroom suite and required seemingly orphaned space with little apparent purpose to achieve this.
This fragile composition just about held together if untouched and while awkward it had charm, but fiddling alteration caused the loss of this equilibrium and the results were annoying rather than charming. The client’s requirements dictated change, and it became apparent that the house needed to be both larger and significantly reordered.
From the initial realisation that the house needed a radical transformation, we set up a team dedicated to the project, closely associating with award winning interior designer Rita Konig, involved at every step of the conception, alterations and completion of this now supremely delightful house. JCA thus secured planning permission for a substantial transformation: including a new full basement and completely reordered floorplan, which fully delivered the client requirements.
The new layout was hung off a new and relocated stair. This unlocked the plan allowing for well-proportioned and convenient rooms at all levels. The arrangement is a simple and delightful one encouraging a satisfying progression from space to space. The new stair has been constructed to go the full height of the house; from the new basement, through the lower ground floor (with lowered floor giving additional height), the reception floor up to the three bedrooms floors. Crucially, it no longer faces you as you enter the house. Instead you are presented with a welcoming hall with wide English oak floorboards.
The kitchen flows naturally off, with scullery hiding all the appliances plus a garden scullery large enough for dinners overlooking the garden, a huge utility room, wine room, boot room, housekeeper's kitchen - even a suitcase room and of course space for the ubiquitous plant room.
An unattractive steel fire escape construction was tacked onto the rear which made garden access uninviting and so was quickly discarded in favour of some proper steps integrated into the house with arch above.
The lower ground floor leads straight out into the garden, but suffered from a rather mean ceiling height making it feel slightly cramped. The solution was to lower the floor by around 30 cm as the opportunity to build a new full-height basement below presented itself.
Changing the lower ground floor level naturally impacted on the garden. Talented garden designer Arne Maynard was called upon to weave his magic with some serious earth works, landscaping and planting which enabled a prefect fusion of garden and sun-filled drawing room. Stepping into this metamorphosed house, the overall results are striking; space flows seamlessly around and from the new staircase, rooms are better proportioned, and Rita Konig’s superb, layered style shines through.
The result is a complete house, utterly pleasant to live in, which suits the needs of the clients and their family in a way that is a testimony to a tested method at JCA: we rely on a close and constant collaboration with interior designer and garden designer, as well as on a dependable main contractor and skilled craftsmen. This truly collective effort is what delivers beautiful homes for our clients.
