Halvorsen Architects have just finished major works to a house in the Grange, a conservation area on Edinburgh’s south side which was first developed as an early suburb from the 1820s. The clients were keen to expand their Georgian villa in as sustainable as possible. We considered several measures, including renewable heating, insulation and airtightness. With …
Halvorsen Architects recently finished an extension to and remodelling of a 1970s house in Dunbar, East Lothian. A sun room, at the heart of the house, links the principal rooms and, with the removal of a wall, creates a large open plan kitchen-dining room. Light floods in through the wall-to-wall South-facing glazing, high-level East-facing clerestory …
client private engineers CRA Ltd. contract value £57,000 area 35 sq. m. An extension to a Victorian house in Leith, Edinburgh, this project was designed to maximise the light coming in from the client’s south-facing garden. It is a large, single room for sitting, dining and showing films. The new multi-purpose room is pulled away to …
This is an abridged version of an article for the next issue of Association of Scottish Hardwood Sawmillers. If I had known how difficult this project was going to be, would I have still done it in the way I did? – absolutely! Genesis (J&T) Ltd., owner of a successful pre-school nursery chain in Midlothian asked me …
client private engineer CRA Ltd. contract value £70,000 area 55 sq. m. The client lives in a listed 1950s, Morris and Steadman house – the ‘Upside Down House’, and needed more room for an expanding family. After looking at various ways of extending the existing house in a bold manner, sympathetic to the original design, …
This is an extension to a Georgian sandstone house in Midlothian, using a timber frame, timber cladding and large areas of glass. The cladding is Siberian Larch – a popular cladding material with architects because of its durability, cost and more consistent texture than its Scottish counterpart. The timber is untreated and will turn silver-grey …
This project was for a client for an extension to and remodelling of house, Bristol that I had worked for in London. He had a similar situation in Bristol – a Victorian house that was too dark and pokey for his liking and an unused attic. In this case planning permission was not required as …
The clients wanted a new play room and bedroom extension for their listed Georgian terraced house in Marylebone, central London. The challenge for Halvorsen Architects was to provide reasonable accommodation on a very narrow site with onerous planning constraints. The scheme was for a two-storey rear extension divided into three bays. Each bay has a …
The clients wanted to make their modern 1970s house and outbuildings less fragmented and open up the interior to the garden. The scheme unifies the various elements with a series of canopies and hard landscaping providing a new terrace, car port and covered walkway. The canopies are composed of bold, laminated beams that seem to …
Halvorsen Architects were asked to replace an existing lean-to extension and remodel the interior of part of a Georgian house in Lasswade, Midlothian. All the internal walls in the area concerned were removed and a new purpose-made stair installed. The floor to ceiling glazing and open-plan hall/stairwell allow maximum light inside where there had been …
Greenhill Place, Edinburgh client private engineer CRA Ltd. contract value £90,000 area 58 sq. m. The brief was to replace and enlarge an existing poorly built 1970’s extension to a Listed Georgian terraced house on the edge of the Grange. The challenge was getting light into the North facing extension and designing a connecting glazed …
Here are a couple of recent extensions to sandstone Georgian houses in Midlothian, both using a timber frame, timber cladding and large areas of glass. Both use Siberian Larch as the external cladding, but in different arrangements to suit each particular building. Siberian Larch is a popular cladding material with architects because of its durability, cost …
Some of you may be familiar with the work of renowned Scottish modernists Morris and Steedman. We were contacted by the new owners of their 1959 Sillitto House in Charterhall Road, Edinburgh, dubbed the ‘Upside-Down House’ because the bedrooms were placed on the ground floor and the living accommodation on the first floor to take …
