Garden building, loft conversion and alterations, West Oxford

This was a project in three parts: a garden building, a loft conversion and alterations to an existing plastic roofed conservatory.

The opportunity to develop the three parts of the project together lead to a shared architectural language and palette of materials for the rear box dormer, the garden building and the refurbished conservatory. We explored a number of materials before settling on an untreated cedar cladding detailed as a ‘rainscreen’.

The garden building forms backdrop to the view of the garden. The 'L' shape plan wraps the building around an existing apple tree. The building is in two parts - a pitched roof home office with a loft area kids hangout. A workshop is tucked behind and lit with natural light from above. A flat roofed storage element houses bikes, garden tools and firewood behind cedar checker-board pattern doors.

The loft conversion involved a hip to gable rebuilding of the roof. The hip is built up in metric common bricks and articulated as a gable end by setting dormer inboard slightly and using lead flashing to junction. The loft level houses a suite of spaces, a large light filled double bedroom, a shower / WC room with panoramic views across to the spires of Oxford and a walk in dressing room with shoe storage carefully fitted in above the stair.
The bedroom window slides, opening the room up to afternoon sun and views of the garden building and allotment gardens beyond.

The conservatory was used a dining room but was very cold in the winter. The clouded twinwall plastic roof was replaced with a highly insulated flat roof featuring an expansive fixed skylight. This move brings more light into space while improving the thermal comfort and efficiency. Bi-folding doors and thermal upgrading to the walls completed the exterior work. An interior wall was removed opening up the kitchen to the dining room.