Ashton Porter were invited by Channel 4 to take part in the second series of “Ugly House to Lovely House” presented by George Clarke.

The project is situated in an estate of late C20 developer private housing. Whilst the estate is typical of such out-of-town developments found anywhere in the UK the project site has a highly unusual configuration of a 2 bedroom first floor flat  above three open ‘carport’ style garages. The client owns one garage and neighbours have use of the other two.

The clients are key workers; a mid-wife and a paramedic. Living in a small flat they were finding it difficult to easily manage alternating shift work patterns and were unable to afford a larger home with split-levels and better separation of living and sleeping spaces.

The project essentially converts the one storey first floor flat to a two storey three bedroom house.  New living, dining and kitchen spaces are created on the ground floor by extending the footprint and connecting to the garden and three bedrooms are created on the existing first floor plan.

One corner of the existing ground floor is cut away and propped by a new exposed cantilever steel frame to connect the new living spaces and the existing ground floor garage which, in turn, is converted to a new kitchen.

A new ribbon of highly insulated black render wraps around the existing structure to form a new enclosure for the ground floor living spaces. It also extends across the existing facade to the first floor to create a new cohesive building identity.