Dove and Tse

Projects / 08

Brick Terrace

A soft red-brick kitchen that opens through tall steel doors onto a herringbone terrace sunk into the garden.

Location
London
Type
Wraparound extension
Fig. 01The brick wall, the steel doors and the sunken terrace, from the garden.

The place

A Victorian terrace house with a long, dark ground floor: a closet wing, a narrow side return and a garden reached only through the kitchen door.

The brief

A kitchen, dining and living space that works as one, with a strong connection to a small, usable outdoor room rather than a large lawn.

The design

The extension wraps the closet wing in one L-shaped kitchen. Its garden wall is a single plane of soft red brick, every course laid flat and parallel, with one wide opening cut clean through it: a pair of black-steel French windows with Mondrian-style asymmetric glazing bars and matching side lights. Outside, the garden is lowered rather than the house raised: three wide brick steps go down to a herringbone brick terrace, with brick-edged beds of Japanese forest grass, soft grasses and ferns at garden level either side and wisteria trained over the wall. A flush rooflight lights the old side return.

Down three brick steps, and the garden is at the height of the table.

Fig. 02Long section through house, kitchen and the sunken terrace.

The terrace

A plain brick wall with one wide opening, and a herringbone terrace sunk half a metre below it.

Fig. 03The brick turned into the reveal, every course laid flat, and the steel side light set back.

Inside

From the old side return under the rooflight, out through the steel doors.

Fig. 04Looking out through the steel doors to the terrace and garden.

Models

Card massing models: the wraparound and its sunken terrace.

Fig. 05Massing model (rendered).
Fig. 06Model detail: the doors and the sunken terrace (rendered).

Drawings

Plans, elevations and details

Each plan sits beside a view of the spaces it shows; the drawing set follows, from the exploded axonometric to a 1:20 detail.

Fig. 07Ground floor plan (proposed).
Fig. 08The kitchen, looking back to the old side return under the rooflight.
Fig. 09Axonometric from the garden.
Fig. 10Garden elevation.

Landscape

The garden, room by room

The garden is lowered by the house, not raised: a herringbone brick terrace half a metre down, with the beds at garden level so the planting sits at eye height, and a multi-stem olive as the one tree, with the lawn and borders beyond.

  1. 01

    Steps

    Three wide brick steps down from the kitchen.

  2. 02

    Terrace

    Herringbone brick, sunk half a metre.

  3. 03

    Beds

    Brick-edged beds of grasses and ferns at garden level.

  4. 04

    Lawn

    Open lawn between borders.

  5. 05

    Borders

    Grasses and perennials along the fences.

Fig. 11Site and landscape plan.
Fig. 12Day — From the doors, down the steps into the herringbone terrace.
Fig. 13From above — The sedum roof, the sunken herringbone terrace and the beds at garden level.

Planting palette

  • Hakonechloa macraJapanese forest grass, spilling over the bed edges
  • Sesleria autumnalisLow, bright grass in drifts
  • Stipa tenuissimaSoft, moving grass
  • Dryopteris erythrosoraCopper shield fern in the shade of the fences
  • Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfeniiStructure in winter
  • Allium 'Purple Sensation'Spring flowers through the grasses
  • Wisteria sinensisTrained over the garden wall

Materials

  • Soft red brickExtension walls in plain stretcher courses, bed walls
  • Clay paversHerringbone terrace and steps
  • TerrazzoKitchen floor
  • OakKitchen joinery and island
  • Black steelMondrian-style French windows and side lights
  • SedumRoof
Fig. 14Material samples.

Project

Project data

Location
London
Type
Wraparound extension
Added area
c. 30 m²
Architectural design
Dove + Tse
Landscape
Dove + Tse
Structural engineer
TBC
Party wall surveyor
TBC