Design ideas for a medium sized modern single-wall kitchen in London with flat-panel cabinets, grey cabinets, mirror splashback, stainless steel appliances, an island, white floors and white worktops.

Design ideas for a victorian conservatory in Other with travertine flooring and a glass ceiling.

Inspiration for a contemporary grey and pink galley open plan kitchen in Other with a submerged sink, flat-panel cabinets, white cabinets, pink splashback, stainless steel appliances, light hardwood flooring and an island.

This is an example of a midcentury grey and brown living room in London with grey walls, dark hardwood flooring and feature lighting.

We were asked to resolve a problem with the layout of a house in the Whitehall Park Conservation Area in Islington. The house had wonderful high ceilings and well proportioned reception rooms, but the kitchen was very compromised. It was housed in an old side return extension and accessed through a warren of other rooms. It was too small and low, didn’t relate well to the dining room and was cut off from the other rooms in the house, accessed down a small flight of steps. The owners wanted a generous, multifunctional family space where they could enjoy time together. Our solution was to take out the side wall of the rear reception room, reconstruct the side return completely and join the two spaces to create a lateral kitchen dining space. Behind this space the old dining room, with less access to natural light, became a utility room, cloakroom and music room. We flipped the kitchen into the old reception room and lowered the floor to create one seamless room level with the garden. This gave the kitchen a huge ceiling height and meant we could increase the size of the French doors which open out onto the garden, making them very grand and a real focal point of the room. The extension itself has a fully glazed roof to bring the most amount of light into the space, including electrically opening rooflights for ventilation. To avoid the dining room being overlooked by the neighbours upper windows, we designed a series of louvres made of oak to line the underside of the roof. These allow filtered light into the extension whilst maintaining a sense of privacy and enclosure. They are openable to allow the glass to be cleaned and we used them to inform the rest of the interior. The extension contrasts to the more traditional kitchen area with its high ceilings and ornate cornice, using oak panels as a lining around the walls. The opening into the kitchen forms a datum line, above which the oak is clad in battens to create texture and tie into design of the louvres. A bench containing storage runs all the way around the dining room and a large pivot window frames views from the music room into the garden. The window can be fully opened to connect the dining room to the outside. The rear wall of the dining room is finished in natural clay plaster, continuing the warm earthy tones of the oak cladding. Externally we used a traditional yellow stock brick so the extension feels like it belongs to the house, but we used the brick in a sawtooth bond, laying them at 45 degrees to create a triangular pattern which create interesting shadows throughout the day.

Felipe Tozzato, Phillip Banks Construction
This is an example of a contemporary galley kitchen in London with a submerged sink, flat-panel cabinets, white cabinets, stainless steel appliances, no island, marble worktops, white splashback and ceramic flooring.

This project was for the creation of an additional floor at second floor level of an end-of-terrace corner property in Crouch End, north London. The new roof including a large dormer extension was built off-site, to provide an additional one-bedroom flat, but with the flexibility to act as an extension to the first floor flat until such time as the owners decide to separate the two flats in accordance with their family's needs. The new structure, external envelope, roof finishes and internal partitions and fixtures were built off-site using modular construction, to minimise the on-site disruption to the family, and was transported to site in four modules and fitted in place within a single day. The dormer extension is contemporary in style and takes full advantage of the westerly high-level views to the Highgate and Muswell Hill hills through glazed slots and sliding doors that provide access to a roof terrace with 360° views to the surrounding hills. The roof extension echoes the existing, older, first floor kitchen extension in its openness to the garden and views beyond and the lightness of its construction. The contemporary design contrasts but sits well with the Edwardian character of the original property. Our services included detailed design and specification of the extension and the fit-out of the interior and full project management and contract administration. Moduloft was the Contractor responsible for the final design and implementation of the pre-fabricated elements.

A playful re-imagining of a Victorian terrace with a large rear extension. The project started as a problem solving exercise – the owner of the house was very tall and he had never been able to have a shower in the pokey outrigger bathroom, there was simply not enough ceiling height. The lower ground floor kitchen also suffered from low ceilings and was dark and uninviting. There was very little connection to the garden, surrounded by trees, which felt like a lost opportunity. The whole house needed rethinking. The solution we proposed was to extend into the generous garden at the rear and reconstruct the existing outrigger with an extra storey. We used the outrigger to relocate the staircase to the lower ground floor, moving it from the centre of the house into a double height space in the extension. This gave the house a very generous sense of height and space and allows light to flood into the kitchen and hall from high level windows. These provide glances of the surrounding tress as you descent to the dining room. The extension allows the kitchen and dining room to push further into the garden, making the most of the views and light. A strip rooflight over the kitchen wall units brings light deep into the space and washes the kitchen with sunlight during the day. Behind the kitchen, where there was no access to natural light, we tucked a utility room and shower room, with a second sitting room at the front of the house. The extension has a green sedum roof to ensure it feels like part of the garden when seen from the upper floors of the house. We used a pale white and yellow brick to complement the colour of the London stock brickwork, but maintain a contemporary aesthetic. Oak windows and sliding door add a warmth to the extension and tie in with the materials we used internally. Internally there is a palette of bold colours to define the living spaces, including an entirely yellow corridor the client has named ‘The Yolky Way’ leading from the kitchen to the front reception room, complete with hidden yellow doors. These are offset against more natural materials such as the oak batten cladding, which define the dining space and also line the back wall of the kitchen concealing the fridge door and larder units. A bespoke terrazzo counter unites the colours of the floor, oak cladding and cupboard doors and the tiled floor leads seamlessly to the outside patio, leading the eye back into the garden. A new bathroom with a generous ceiling height was placed in the reconstructed outrigger, with triple aspect windows, including a picture window at the end of the bath framing views of the trees in the garden. Upstairs we kept the traditional Victorian layout, refurbished the windows and shutters, reinstating cornice and ceiling roses to the principal rooms. At every point in the project the ergonomics of the house were considered, tall doors, very high kitchen worktops and always maximising ceiling heights, ensuring the house was more suited to its tall owner.

Design ideas for a contemporary bungalow rear extension in London.

Medium sized open plan living room in Melbourne with white walls and medium hardwood flooring.

Inspiration for a swimming pool in Sydney.

This is an example of an urban open plan kitchen in London with flat-panel cabinets, white cabinets, stainless steel appliances, concrete flooring and an island.

Gorgeously small rear extension to house artists den with pitched roof and bespoke hardwood industrial style window and french doors. Internally finished with natural stone flooring, painted brick walls, industrial style wash basin, desk, shelves and sash windows to kitchen area. Chris Snook

Kitchen Architecture
Inspiration for a contemporary kitchen in Manchester.

Carl Turner
This is an example of a medium sized modern living room in Other.

To dwell and establish connections with a place is a basic human necessity often combined, amongst other things, with light and is performed in association with the elements that generate it, be they natural or artificial. And in the renovation of this purpose-built first floor flat in a quiet residential street in Kennington, the use of light in its varied forms is adopted to modulate the space and create a brand new dwelling, adapted to modern living standards. From the intentionally darkened entrance lobby at the lower ground floor – as seen in Mackintosh’s Hill House – one is led to a brighter upper level where the insertion of wide pivot doors creates a flexible open plan centred around an unfinished plaster box-like pod. Kitchen and living room are connected and use a stair balustrade that doubles as a bench seat; this allows the landing to become an extension of the kitchen/dining area - rather than being merely circulation space – with a new external view towards the landscaped terrace at the rear. The attic space is converted: a modernist black box, clad in natural slate tiles and with a wide sliding window, is inserted in the rear roof slope to accommodate a bedroom and a bathroom. A new relationship can eventually be established with all new and existing exterior openings, now visible from the former landing space: traditional timber sash windows are re-introduced to replace unsightly UPVC frames, and skylights are put in to direct one’s view outwards and upwards. photo: Gianluca Maver

Matt Stevens
Inspiration for a contemporary bathroom in Hampshire with painted wood flooring.

Contemporary Extension to Edwardian house in Chiswick
Inspiration for a contemporary dining room in London.

Photo of a medium sized contemporary roof rooftop terrace in London with a roof extension.