We  were commissioned by our Client to design an out building to be used as a home office and convert the garage into a lounge.

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The brief was to provide a home office for the family, which has become more necessary given the Covid-19 pandemic. The garage was seen as an under-utilised existing space and we have also looked to convert this into a habitable room connected to the new home office.

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Conservation Area Considerations

The property is situated in the Whitwell Conservation Area and therefore needed to be sensitive to the context in materials and forms.

We picked up on some repetitive elements such as gable ended elevations, clay tile roofs and the use of black timber weatherboarding.

There is also a repeating arrangement whereby the ground floor or base of the building is expressed in a different material - whether that be brick or render.

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Design Strategy

The design strategy is to create a ‘deck’ over the sunken driveway to create a car port. A lightweight timber box, then sits on top of this, almost like a summer house at the bottom of the cottage garden.

The ground floor converts the existing garage structure into a new habitable space with windows and doorway to the street. An internal staircase is inserted within the converted garage and this lead up to a new room at garden level.

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A New Home Office

The new stair from the converted garage links to the new first floor level (garden level). In this new structure a home office is created, which has views out to the landscape to the north and associated patio areas. A door to the south gives a connection back to the garden and the cottage.

The proposed rooms give additional accommodation for our Client’s family, who like most people are now working from home more and would benefit from dedicated home-office space.

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