Dartmouth Park Project - Boscastle Road No. 1

Terraced Victorian houses make our London streets both characterful and elegant. But sometimes the reality of the spaces at the back of each house – designed for a different era and a different way of living – don’t quite work for modern day life. Dark, disconnected from the garden and lacking any kind of flow, they often require a complete rethink. Here, a complete rethink meant renovation and reinvention on a grand scale: a four-storey vertical light well cutting through the whole of the property, flooding it with light from above; a vertical slot, glass bridge and double-height glass infill; and a full basement excavation. A project like this is a serious undertaking, both for us and for our clients, but we guided them carefully through every step – planning, cost consultancy, project management and every aspect of the architectural and interior design. Securing planning permission for the double-height glass infill required a complex series of applications. But it was worth every bit of paperwork and every conversation with the planners to see this previously dark house come alive. It’s difficult to describe the effect of the light streaming in, or the effect of the large expanses of frameless glass against the original brickwork, or the feeling of the unencumbered, connected spaces. But for our clients, it’s been a joyful and life-changing transformation.