The brief for Botanical House was to adapt this Victorian villa into a workable family home.

CE+CA worked through three different options to improve the living space, make use of a large basement and create better links to the garden. The ground floor living space currently sits a storey above the garden and so the client hoped to create a better link to the outside across different levels and sought an innovative approach.

An additional part of the brief was to imagine the possible use of a historic coach house, which sits in the grounds. The solution for this involved a discussion of how the existing structure could be adapted to provide home-working and independent living spaces.

The final project is deceptively simple.  A new addition creates a garden room  to the rear of the house, changes access to the lower floor and forms an intermediary step down to the garden.  A simple repeated timber frame responds to the proportions of the original house, framing windows, doors and rooflights to give the space a sense of order and scale that is at once contemporary and at one with the Victorian architecture.

A new lightweight open tread stair leads from the main house level down to the garden room before a second flight is carved out of the ground, leading to the lower level and a new family space.  In moving the main stair from the middle of the house, the dining room is given space to breathe, removing the feeling of it being a corridor and having its own sense of purpose whilst connecting directly to the renovated kitchen.

Whilst small, the project has been transformative and has provided the family with a sequence of spaces that brings them together in a fashion that was previously unimaginable.

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