Stafford Road, Brighton – John Whiting Architecture

Approval was achieved at planning committee for a compact new house on an end of terrace site and loft extension to an existing flat. The site is an end of terrace Victorian property originally built as a two-storey house, later subdivided into two flats. The triangular area of land with existing garages was an unsightly feature in the streetscape and the original building ignored this area of land in its design with no windows, doors or end elevation features to address this prominent street corner.

The design makes better use of the corner of the site by replacing the garages with a new one bedroom house. The new house has an entrance from Stafford Road with open plan kitchen and dining space at ground floor, bedroom with bathroom at first floor and a sitting room in the roof space. The existing ground floor two bedroom flat has been re-arranged internally to improve the room layout. The existing two bedroom first floor flat has been extended into the roof space to provide an additional bedroom and bathroom to create a three bedroom flat. The new house is designed to complement the existing building by matching its scale, elemental arrangement and horizontal alignment, making a visual transition between the Stafford Road and Buxton Road frontages. The new house elevations are painted render to match existing using a contemporary language of detailing and fenestration. The new house is arranged with a canted bay and front entrance positioned to match the spatial rhythm of vertical elements in the existing streetscape. The elevation treatment then wraps the corner to address Buxton Road creating a curved bay window as a focal point when viewed from the southern approach. The corner is extended visually to roof level as a turreted roof dormer finished in zinc sheet cladding.

Project completed 2019

Project
Stafford Road, Brighton

Client
Private