This project involved the complete refurbishment and re-configuring of a 1920's semi-detached cottage in Cambridge.

Due to the nature of the site and the fact that the house was set back from it's neighbours, Sam Tisdall Architects were able to add an extension to the front of the house as well as to the back and loft. This transformed the cottage and has made it a spacious house which is full of light and allows for it to accommodate modern living, the extension at the front providing the client with a study.

The design is asymmetrical with its roof extending up to meet the roof of the house, topped with a rooflight and with a corner glazed window facing the garden.

The front door was re-positioned alongside the extension, with a simple metal canopy fixed above. Internally a much larger entrance hall was formed by combining the narrow hall and the old study. This completely alters the sense of scale of the house and provides the setting for a new stair to replace the narrow and steeply winding original. This is made from solid Douglas fir boards with the end grain exposed, and a blackened mild steel handrail. It required careful detailing to hide fixings and close co-ordination between joiner and metal worker, with sections of handrail slotted into place and welded together on site.

The stair extends up to the loft with the landing bridging across the stair void linking a bedroom on one side with a shower room on the other.

To the rear of the house a poorly built extension was reconfigured and extended up to the first floor with kitchen and dining space on the ground and a bathroom and an ensuite above. This is also clad in cedar but with flat roofs and carefully placed rooflights and windows.

Throughout the house there is a calm atmosphere, with lye and white oiled Douglas fir floors and light tones chosen for the walls. Tongue and groove panelling was used in the study, bathrooms and to the side of the staircase. Everywhere there is a focus on daylight with generous rooflights and windows.

Externally, the new elements are clad with vertical cedar boards which particularly emphasise the sculptural form of the extension to the front of the house. There are no visible flashings and the walls and roof appear as one homogeneous material which culminates at a rooflight at the top where it meets the original building. This treatment while in contrast respects the original house and its surroundings.