Roz Barr’s terrace house extension is a minimalist reimagining
Terrace house extension by Roz Barr Architects transforms Victorian London home through pared-down elegance
![inside terrace house extension looking out through green window frames](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/ybjX5PBNVbepbhi7AroUim-415-80.jpg)
London’s housing stock is dominated by rank upon rank of red Victorian terraces. These houses have a set flow and formula; front bay, three or four bedrooms, reception rooms leading down into a kitchen and usually a modest garden beyond. From the front, street after street looks pretty much identical. But as architect Roz Barr says, the story is more complicated out back. Over the last few decades, owners have worked on terrace house extension projects, building upwards and outwards and mostly expanded their kitchens sidewards. These add-ons, stark modern boxes plugged into their Victorian hosts, have established new architectural conventions. This is a new hybrid form, mostly hidden from the outside world.
The transformational power of the terrace house extension
Barr, the architect behind the interiors of the Bureau co-working buildings at Design District on Greenwich Peninsula, the co-working and café spaces at London’s Building Centre, Selfridges Creative Studio and the Victoria Beckham studio in New York, has taken on just such a Victorian terrace house revamp.
The client had bought the house, in Stoke Newington, north London, back in the 1990s and has been renting it out ever since. Like many houses of that vintage, it wasn't in great shape, with bowed and battered floors, straining drains and a crumbling bay. The client wanted to return it to the rental market as a family house but in a much better fettle.
'It needed something that was robust and fresh but was in keeping with the age of the building,' Barr says. A lot of the work was repair and restoration, what Barr calls 'careful dentistry'. She cleaned up, kept the original doors and fireplaces, replaced sash windows and ironmongery with traditional radiators and installed reclaimed pine floorboards. 'We wanted it to feel quite settled,' she says.
Barr and the client decided not to build upward but they did, in what is now a kind of vernacular move, extend the kitchen into the garden’s side return. This is where, in most renovation projects, the joins show. And not in a good way. 'You walk into these Victorian houses and it's quite nice and linear and then “pow“,' says Barr, 'there is a huge, high-tech, spaceship kitchen and crazy skylights and a massive island in the middle. It’s fine, I guess. It's what most of London has done.'
Barr wanted to make sure that transition from the Victorian to the contemporary was a little less jarring. The kitchen floor in this project is concrete screed with unglazed black and white quarry tiles, while grey Valchromat kitchen cabinet doors emphasise the dusty understatement. Barr has added colour – and she is an expert colourist – with green sliding Schüco doors and red concrete counters and splashback, but the effect is simple and controlled. The exterior of the kitchen extension is finished with glazed, creamy white brick, 'respecting that Victorian language of the building', says Barr.
It is hard to tell just how much side-extension-grab square footage has been added to London’s housing over the last decade. With this project, though, Barr offers a model for doing it with respect and restraint.
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
Tour the Natural History Museum’s new gardens, a Jurassic lark in London
The Natural History Museum in London has unveiled two new gardens, with resident dinosaurs, after a transformation led by architects Feilden Fowles
By Bridget Downing Published
-
Drama Republic moves into a colourful, handcrafted workspace in London
For the new creative HQ of production company Drama Republic, Emil Eve Architects remodels a warehouse into office space in London’s Holborn
By Léa Teuscher Published
-
Hideaway House in London features timber panelling inspired by the New York hospitality scene
The elegantly refurbished Hideaway House by Studio McW in London features timber panelling inspired by Philip Johnson’s The Four Seasons Restaurant
By Léa Teuscher Published
-
An Uxbridge annexe by Bureau de Change is a design for effortless intergenerational living
Uxbridge Bower, a residential annexe in west London, is a contemporary addition offering both privacy and connection for the needs of a family
By Tianna Williams Published
-
‘Modern Buildings’ tours south-east London through a guide to post-war Blackheath and Greenwich
‘Modern Buildings: Blackheath and Greenwich’ is a detailed survey of a London borough’s rich trove of new modernist architecture
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Triangle House invites you to its inner world of colourful surprises
Triangle House by Artefact is a private home in Epsom, outside London, combining Caribbean style, colour and functionality
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Tour the refreshed Saint Andrew Holborn: an icon reveals its crisp new interior in London
DaeWha Kang reimagines Saint Andrew Holborn church through a sensitive architectural solution that blends tradition and modernity in London
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
A Suffolk house by Studio Bark pairs a fresh visual language with low-energy design
Suffolk house Water Farm is off-the-grid but defiantly on the map, a bold new object in the landscape with a strong visual impact and minimal carbon footprint
By Jonathan Bell Published