36 PROJECT REPORT: SELFBUILD & CUSTOM BUILD PROJECTS


ELEVATING THE REAR


The clients gave the architects the freedom to explore ways to break up the rear elevation, and responding to neighbouring properties they created a staggered, highly contemporary form


itting among a smorgasbord of house design styles in suburban Mill Hill, north west London, is a striking new addition by architects RISE Design Studio. The house created for a family of four, in the prominent location of Wise Lane, is the practice’s first new build. However, through collaboration and a careful design that’s a hybrid of contemporary flair and more traditional English architecture, a smooth result has been achieved.


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The substantial five-bedroom home’s design combines a precisely-detailed, Georgian-inspired double-fronted facade with a more ‘modern’ staggered rear elevation. In this way RISE hoped to offer an architecturally sensitive while creative and sustainable result for the clients. The practice is now established in London, having completed many refurbishment projects, including in the commercial and education sectors, and jumped at the chance to step into the world of new build, high end residential. Clients, Soho developer Mr Lobb and partner, wanted a building with bright, open interiors which “balanced modern living with the traditional idea of a home, says Sean Ronnie Hill, director at RISE. He admits that “one of their main concerns was that we hadn’t completed a new build,” but adds that he “managed to


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convince them that often renovations are a lot trickier!”


He says that renovation and extension of the existing 1970s-built house on the site would have been straightforward in terms of planning: “you could get an 8 metre extension through on prior approval, but it “would have made for a very large ground floor,” and would not have been the best use of the site. He tells ADF that once the architects had “dissected what the clients were trying to achieve,” and bearing in mind the zero rated VAT for new build – as the budget was not unlimited – “it seemed the best way forward was to demolish and build new.” Also, the existing building was thermally


poor, and would have needed to be internally insulated throughout to bring it up to current standards. While refurbishment was possibly the most sustainable approach, the project’s credentials were bolstered by the demolition contractors carefully segregating and removing the rubble for reuse. When it came to the brief, the clients


were “realistic and really grounded,” says Hill. “They said they’d like something, but understood if they weren’t able to get it.” With two teenage daughters, they wanted this, their “forever home,” to have “a couple of spare bedrooms” so that one could be a


ADF JULY 2021


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