Snug Projects will be bringing their expertise to the Ask an Expert stand at the Grand Designs Live exhibition. We will be there all day on bank Holiday Monday. Any self build questions welcomed and we will see what we can do to help.

Contextual Modernism

Our proposal for a contemporary two storey extension in the Winchester Conservation Area has been commended by the planners as a good example of design developed in consultation with the planners and the Local Design Review Panel. The proposal had been oppossed by the Conservation Officer and some local residents at the planning stage. Having been refused at Committee the scheme was ultimately granted at Appeal. Both residents and planners have now recognised its qualities and are pleased with its sensitive relationship to the context. More photographs will be coming soon.

Snug Projects have just finished this contemporary extension to a house in the Winchester Conservation Area. The clients are very pleased and so are we. The brief set us the challenge of designing a two storey extension at the rear of the property with views of the trees at the front of the house. Our solution peels the bedroom wall away from the existing gable, opening up a slot of glass with views to the front. This shift in geometry brings the added benefit of increased space in the bedroom. We then eek out alittle more view and a little more space through an innovative frameless glass window seat that allows long distance views across the city, without allowing overlooking of the neighbour, a key planning constriant. This is a good example of Snug’s approach to creating opportunity out of constraint. Well done to the project architect, Simon Broomfield, for another great scheme.

The Forge is now on the market with the Charters Winchester office. It is due for completion in mid April and now benefits from an additional 1/4 acre of paddock. Offers are invited in the region of £1,250,000.

63. In determining applications, great weight should be given to outstanding or innovative designs which help raise the standard of design more generally in the area.

64. Permission should be refused for development of poor design that fails to take the opportunities available for improving the character and quality of an area and the way it functions.

This is what we have been waiting for.

When an architect designs a building they focus on the whole, the gestalt. In order to create something as complex as a building they must take the whole, break it down into its constituent parts and ensure that all the ingredients are accounted for. They must hold the whole and the parts in their mind simultaneously. The skill is to put all the pieces back together again, and, having done that, for the end result to work like clockwork.

The site of a building really matters to us. We agree with this seminal quote from Steven Holl:

‘The site of a building is more than a mere ingredient of its conception. It is its physical and metaphysical foundation. Building transcends physical and functional requirements by fusing with a place, by gathering the meaning of a situation. Architecture does not so much intrude on the landscape as it serves to explain it. Architecture and site should have an experiential connection, a metaphysical link, a poetic link. ‘(Steven Holl, Anchoring, 1988)

When we design we must have our eyes and our hearts open. We must listen as well as look. We must smell, feel and remember. All of our senses must be alive if we are to create designs that bring ongoing life to the places in which we work. There is no status quo. Places, like the cells in our own body, are always being renewed. The challenge is to maintain our identity and character whilst  striving towards maturity. For the buildings we design to succeed in this task we must develop a deep understanding and respect for site. The result will not however be a pastiche of past responses. It will be something new, something befitting our era and the needs of our age.