A Grade II listed, semi-detached house in Little Venice dating from 1844. From the front, the two semi-detached houses read as a single cream-coloured stucco villa.

Dominic McKenzie Architects’ (DMA’s) work involved the full renovation and extension of the listed house. The extension replaced an existing modern garage at the side of the house and now extends beyond into the remodelled rear garden.

From the front DMA’s side extension, which contains a new study room, sits modestly against the original house and reflects the house’s pared down classical language. An arched reveal in the side extension echoes the arched entrance door adjacent and frames a simple ‘six over six’ timber sash window. Adjacent to the extension, new entrance steps and balustrades are designed to feel like they had always been there. The balustrades use a historic cast iron panel matching the original living room balustrade to the left.

At the edge of the front garden, new bespoke pedestrian and automatic car gates echo the scalloped motif in the house’s front door fanlight. For the wider redesign of the front and rear gardens DMA worked with garden designers Studio Cullis.

Looking towards the rear of the house, the new side addition extends into the garden on the left, in front of the neighbour’s tall, blank brick party wall. A pre-existing 1980s conservatory on the right of the façade and a two storey closet-wing on the left were demolished to declutter the rear façade and to allow space for the new extension.

Conceived as an openable glass box, the rear extension is enclosed by large three-leaf, glass sliding doors on the two garden-facing sides. The extension’s structure was carefully designed in conjunction with engineers Float Structures, so that a single steel column supports the entire roof. This means that the two facades can be almost entirely opened up with a frameless corner, allowing the new kitchen and dining area to become part of the rear garden.

The fascia panels above the sliding doors are formed from architectural bronze concealing the roof structure and the wildflower roof build-up behind. The bronze panels also conceal an integrated external roller blind system to prevent the south-facing glass extension from overheating. The roller blind system descends in an L shape around the external corner. The blind fabric is translucent allowing the views out to the rear garden to be maintained when the blind is down.

The extension contains the kitchen and dining room. The kitchen island is articulated as a solid block of Dolce Vita quartzite, with a counter and full height storage units behind it. A small utility room is located at the rear of the kitchen, lit by a rooflight from the flat roof above.

Within the main body of the house, DMA worked carefully restoring the existing listed building fabric. The interiors were developed in conjunction with the client and the interior designer Crawford Design.

Apart from the kitchen/ dining room in the new rear extension, the lower ground floor contains a study, a guest bedroom, bathroom and snug with new French doors opening up to the rear garden.

At upper ground floor, the two main interconnected front and rear rooms are used as living rooms. In the entrance hall a new window in the rear façade (replacing the pre-existing closet-wing) looks out towards the rear garden across the new green roof.

At first floor, a pair of glazed French doors were added between the front and rear rooms.

The large existing Golden Locust tree in the house’s front garden forms a beautiful backdrop to the front rooms of the house, with views to the Regents Canal and the canal boats beyond.