Lancaster Mews
In Lancaster Mews, Bayswater our clients purchased a near derelict mews house, which had been vacant for many years and our brief was to ‘re-build’ the house. Being in a conservation area the front wall had to remain, but we managed to demolish the house behind the front façade and to build the new structure behind it.
By excavating a new basement under the entire footprint of the plot, and by extending the habitable accommodation up into the roof space, we managed to build a 4-storey house in place of the original 2-storey property, and so achieving a greater volume of space within the same footprint.
The challenging task when working on Mews houses is to allow natural light to penetrate the property, when it only has windows in the front façade. We have managed to create two lightwell spaces within the footprint of the house, which form internal courtyard areas, albeit very small in scale. These provide light shafts which penetrate deep into the property, brighten the back of the house and improve ventilation.
Our client is a structural engineer and because of his deep understanding of the building process, he was involved closely through all stages of the project. Through a mutual appreciation of design and construction methods we have enjoyed a productive and collaborative working relationship with this client, and we believe the result reflects this in a positive way.