Visualisation of St. Dunstans, Fulham, London
St. Dunstan’s Road is one of the fifteen basement extensions in Fulham undertaken by Shape Architecture over the last few years in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. We design basement extensions in London in many other boroughs from Kensington and Chelsea to Richmond and Camden. It is in Fulham, though, where we have built the most basement projects and as such we know the planning and building control departments well. We have well established working relationships with a range of contractors and structural engineers.
Visualisation of St. Dunstans, Fulham, London
This basement extension like most similar projects also incorporates ground floor extensions and a loft conversion alongside the complete internal refurbishment and works to both front and rear gardens.
The design is noticeable for its open plan interior. A glass cube giving onto the rear garden acts as a feature, within which the stair into the basement is located to good effect creating a strong visual connection between the interior and the garden beyond. Providing a means by which the basement visually connects to the garden, daylight fills the cube lighting the basement. Whether bright sunshine or on a rainy day this connection between inside and outside is very successful. The clients for this project had visited another basement project in Fulham of ours located in Hurlingham Road where a similar glass cube with stair within had been constructed and proved successful.
The feature stair and glass cube are located at the edge of a light, bright kitchen dining space which in turn opens up onto the reception room at the front of the property. As soon as one enters the open nature of the plan is such that one is drawn towards the garden and through a spacious and contemporary interior.
Regarding detailed design, the access to the kitchen through the centre of the floorplan works well regarding the emphasis it puts on a series of glimpses and views and the impact of the various roof lights located in the side return.
At First floor level a Master Bedroom is formed. Here the typical model of converting a bedroom into en-suite and walk-in wardrobe is not followed. Rather a large bathroom is created with ample space for freestanding bath and double shower enclosure. Wardrobe space is set up with bespoke wardrobes designed by Shape Architecture in the Master bedroom.
A large loft level bedroom is also included in the development. The stair leading up to the loft has over it a large roof light, and this provides ample daylight down through the stair void to levels below.
The rear garden is quite compact but benefits, as does the interior by the openness of the dining room and kitchen onto to it and also the siting of the glass cube at its edge.
Such an open plan arrangement at ground floor and also the stair from the basement opening up directly onto the kitchen means that a spray mist system of fire suppression has been installed. This was agreed beforehand with the local building control office. The project stands as an interesting adaption to a tried and tested formula and one which contains architectural interest in a series of areas.