Renfrew Road

 

A sensitive conversion of the architects’ own 1960s ex-local authority terrace house, this project transforms a housing type whose familiar modesty has become sadly under-appreciated with the passing of time.  Replacement windows, a rear extension, and interior alterations all combine to create a modern family home flooded with natural light and colour.  At the top of the interior, a large new skylight illuminates a double-height wall of bookshelves sitting astride the stair, whose remodelled yellow balustrade traverses the entire height of the house. This top-lit stair uses this ribbon of colour and light to establish a warm vertical axis to the house, and provides borrowed light to the adjoining rooms. 

 

Crisp new Velfac aluminium windows have replaced the unhappy uPVC originals, effecting a dramatic face-lift for the external facades, and setting an appropriate tone for the clean modernism of the interiors.  An unsympathetic front porch has also been removed, making room for a new gate at the entrance. At the heart of the house, a newly enlarged skylit kitchen/dining room unfolds over a series of level changes as it extends through full-width sliding doors out into the rear garden.