Making visual decisions for your home, matching your neighbours… Do you want to? Why would you?6/9/2023 Right so you want an extension, front rear loft, they're all the same, in the sense that at some point you're faced with the same question. What's it going to look like?
Will you match your neighbours? Will you match your rear to your front or vice versa? Okay, right first things first, why match at all? Now each council throughout England is inline about many a thing, but it's the things that they're not online about that's likely to catch you out. What are those things?
As the resident of a council, it's fairly hard for you to tell. Let's me honest, often you're too close to make the call. Often this is also where architects are your best friend. They can be the ones to have informed arguments sign the council for you. Let you know which design choices about your project are 50/50 or which you're more than likely to get. At the end of the day you don't want your heart set on a gorgeous vertical brick pattern on the front extension of your house that is essentially too adventurous for your council to approve. An architect, often synonymous with a wizard, can give you options to introduce that brick pattern in a subtle enough way that it'll no longer be contentious. So much so that your extension and contentious will never be used in the same sentence. What do you think about that? What makes a pretty street? And how does it come into play and affect you?All the windows match! Don't say that you haven't noticed! You have! It's what makes streets in Kensington look prettier than say Kennington…sorry Kennington. If you take a second to think about the prettiest neighbourhood that you can think of, question what is it about it that you appreciate? Now, there are a number of councils that are likely to steer you towards matching the existing appearances of your neighbours and some that won’t. But should they really have to steer you? You’re not a sheep. Remember to act like it. The real fun of extensions and any domestic project really is finding the design wiggle room and acting accordingly. Play with what you’re allowed and what is perhaps more risky, there’s no harm in it if it’s an informed choice, because then it can be defended to your council. This is the discussion to be had with your architectural professional. You can dance on the grave of the council’s advice and get away with it, but only if you know the act moves to make. Barnes for instance has a number of mismatched rear extensions, which means that its occupants can get away with a lot of risky visual choices but the same rules may not apply to their front extensions and it’s unlikely that they do. Now, I did use the phrase ‘get away with’ but it’s not about tricking your council, it's about getting the most reasonable outcome, which is not always a given. It’s more often than not backing them into a corner to help them come to the conclusion that your project should be approved. After all, you’re going to live in it, not them. For this reason, it’s about knowing your audience. The reception in London for example for council to the same design will vary nearly every time and for different reasons depending. In Bristol for instance, there’s a street where the repeated motif on each the whole way, right into the fields planks wood… which is unthinkable in London. Not one house, but every single terrace house on either side of the street. And so strong a motif that the other shapes and structures involved don’t match in any other conceivable way? Why are the materials important?I know what you’re thinking, you know exactly what you want for your project. You’ve thought about it day and night for years. You’ve deliberated over the interior choices and what rugs would fit that mahogany polished floor each bank holiday and/or spare second. You’ve got everything down pat, to say the least - you’ve thought through the shapes, the windows, the type of roof and read a minimum of a dozen architectural magazines. You know what’s in, out and what’s on their way out. But what about the brick colours, if that’s what you want, are you aware of all the options? How will they be arranged? Moreover, how will your ideas interact with the rest of the house and the neighbouring properties? In a number of cases, councils often access how externally viewable additions communicate with the rest of their neighbourhood. What does this mean? Well the thing about seeing countless properties in magazines or on architectural design websites, is that they’re shown in isolation. You often, as the viewer, get the smallest snapshot of the property as possible. This is to draw attention to the specifics of the extension or whatever the project was, which is entirely fair. However, you don’t experience rooms like that - as small singular neat remote spaces, unconnected to others. How an extension connects to the rest of a house, how well it can do that, is an indicator of how successful it is. Sometimes, you’re looking to create an extension that enlarges a space versus other occasions where you may be looking to create a secluded space. In either situation an extension should act how you’d like, without being visually awkward or compromising the flow of movement in the home. Extensions, wherever they’re situated should be seen as appendages; even if they don’t do the same job as other rooms/parts of the house that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t feel as much of a part of the house as original rooms do. The same goes for how extensions impact on a larger scale - on front street views and on street views. This is accessed in terms of the colours used on windows, window frames, doors, door frames as well their materials; brick colours as well as the masonry arrangement - how much depth the extensions have relative to pre existing ones as well as their heights. That’s just to mention a few. Planning is a game of attaining what you want. This game is based of what has already been granted planning permission; what is currently being approved by your council and how you’ll use those trends and patterns of information - how they overlap or lack thereof, to get what you want. Where does your project fit in with the pattern of what’s been approved and how can it be made to? Realistically this is what architectural professionals are for. To balance out what you want, with what you need and what is required. The gaps in your knowledge regarding those things is where architectural professionals like myself reach into their bag of knowledge, not dissimilar to Mary Poppins own bag, mind you, and pull recommendations, of all sorts, to get you through.
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