Flitch Cottage, Walthamstow, London

Overlooking a prairie garden in the Orford Road Conservation Area, Northeast London. The existing property was dark, damp and cold. The brief was to create an efficient, ergonomic, sociable home. The project's primary aim was to reconfigure, extend and improve the health of the existing building by eliminating damp issues and connecting and framing a view of the client’s newly planted prairie garden whilst retaining the cottage's DNA. Both house and garden are designed with a changing climate in mind. The prairie garden, designed by Ian Turkington, looks great all year round, and planting can deal with drought and sustained rainfall. Using durable, high-performance materials, a fabric-first approach was taken when designing the new extension and retrofit elements. Spaces are designed for comfort, providing a superb outlook across the garden but not overheating. A timber & cranked flitch beam roof was specified to reduce the amount of steel in the build; external walls are built from Enviroblock, a building block produced from secondary and recycled materials with high-performance insulation; the historic cementitious external render on the rear of the original house was stripped off, and the entire rear façade was rendered with a light grey lime render, enabling wet walls to dry out, improving the health of the building; the existing timber floor has been insulated using jute floor insulation made from old coffee bean sacks; all the windows have been replaced with double-glazed units; the non-original front garden wall was rebuilt using reclaimed London Stock bricks. The result is a contextual, warm, comfortable, characterful home with an internal framework designed to display the homeowner’s modern British prints and glass collection — a sanctuary in a busy city.