Dulwich House

The project is about defining a new seasonal relationship of home to garden that exploits the amazing elevated park views and wonderful westerly sunlight. The ground floor is reconfigured and extended to provide a series of ‘broken-plan’ family spaces whose architecture is defined with a series of conceptually simple, but technically complex, columns and beams. Three sequential spaces are created, a back kitchen and boot room, a kitchen and dining zone, and a living space, all connected to a 5m deep terrace through a variety of glazed openings, shaded by the fair-faced concrete full-width lintel above. Sectionally the rear of the house is lowered two steps to create generous ceiling height but also to ease the connection with the large sloped 52m rear garden.

Environmentally the new elements are heavily insulated and key parts of the existing fabric re-lined. An ASHP provides heating for the building through efficient UFH and new radiators, the gas supply was removed. Energy use has been recorded as 13500kwh for the first year, which is 51.5kWh/m2/yr, well below the RIBA 2025 target of 60kWh/m2/yr.