Hope Villa

A super sustainable home.

The property was previously extended and refurbished about 13 years ago in 2011. The refurbishment was to a high sustainable standard with exceptional thought given to the detailing of the thermal envelope by the owner. The project won various awards for sustainability and was featured in the Guardian "Hope Villa: from a leaky semi to a sustainable superhome" (August 2014). The same sustainability criteria was to be carried in to this new phase of development.

Re-duce, re-use, re-new - The project is small in footprint but impactful in architectural quality. Three new extensions and adaptations were proposed. Firstly the existing side extension was stripped back to floor finishes and steel frame, with roof lights retained for re-use, and remodelled with a highly insulated warm deck roof forming a new allotment garden. Secondly the small patio was infilled with a double storey height space articulated with large special windows, an oriel window framing views of the garden at ground floor level and large high level windows gifting views to the sky and roof top allotment. The third intervention is a new garden room.

The construction was entirely timber frame with the exception of one new small steel beam and ground works were minimised due to the small footprint of added space. Floor finishes were timber to match the existing retained and the extensions are clad in Accoya battens, which together with the retained steelwork, made for an extremely low embodied carbon form of construction. Internally birch plywood sheets are used to line and express the double height space and existing elements of the kitchen which was also entirely retained.

Bio-diversity gain.

The project cleverly creates a bio-diversity net gain with an ambitious landscape strategy that embraces sustainable practices. All flat roofs have a variety of gardens installed, including an allotment, providing habitats for wildlife and all rainwater is collected fore re-use.