This large family home is tucked away in a wooded site in Poole. The house functioned well as a family home but with one exception; The existing kitchen. It was apologetically sited at the rear of the house on the north elevation, which provided no real link to the rest of the house or the garden with a 1980s UPVC conservatory bolted to the side of the house providing a large space that was unsuitable for use both in summer and winter due to extremes in temperature.
Architects RB Studio were appointed by the homeowner to provide a solution that would bring the kitchen and family room into the heart of both the house and the garden. Their design solution was to remove the conservatory and replace with a sculptural pavilion. The extension sits at an angle to the main house and garden readdressing the lack of connection between the two and the link between old and new is defined by a frameless glazed slot. The angular roof form of the extension not only encloses the main kitchen but over sails to provide a covered external entraining space.
Calcinotto were approached by RB Studio to provide a structural design solution for the extension, with the requirement of an open space and large extents of glazing the challenge was to provide a frame solution of minimal depths, size and columns. As part of the Architect’s proposed design they wanted to enhance the extension by lifting the extension out of the site and providing the appearance of it floating above the garden. Calcinotto were able to achieve this in our design by using advanced finite element analysis software to design a suspended ground floor flat slab that cantilevered over the mass concrete strip foundations and sub-walls sit back from the edge of the concrete.
This extension was completed spring 2017.
