SAMARKAND

Samarkand is located in Little Kingshill, just on the outskirts of Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire (known for being the home of Roald Dahl). The house stands alone on a 0.4 acre site and is 270m2, 4 bedroomed house, the existing brick house had been extended with the light grey plastic gable.

One of the key concept decisions for this project was should we knock down and start again or can we work with what we have? The client was keen to retain the existing if it was more cost effective than rebuilding.

The developed brief was to create a contextual, contemporary family home that would help to prolong the design life of the existing 1970s house. The footprint of the house was to remain the same but additional floor area was to be gained by occupying the garage and reconfiguring the internal spaces in a more efficient way.

We wanted to create a house with more clarity of form, so we relocated the entrance between the brick and gable building, creating a glass link entrance. We also removed the section of roof between the gable and existing brick house creating to distinct forms, one remaining as the original reclaimed London brick and the other being clad in charred timber. 1970s/80s houses are plentiful around the country, so we wondered if there is a huge opportunity to improve the design life of many of these by applying a similar process as this project. Could this set a standard and inspire others to do the same?