The plans for Kelross Road shown split into the separate applicaion for the infill extension, and the rest was submitted separately under PD.

LOWER GROUND FLOOR PLAN GROUND FLOOR PLAN

Glazed roof overlean-to extension

Line of number 11 Kelrossroad

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333Lean-to

extension tobe set backby 1

3 of ametre fromexisting rearexterior wall

scale

stage

E mail@lparchitects.co.ukW www.lparchitects.co.uk

Do not scale from this drawing. This drawing is copyright

Islington Green Studios81-83 Essex RoadIslingtonLondon N1 2SF

date issued drawn by

project

drawing title

T +44 (0)20 7288 1333F +44 (0)20 7288 0333

client

drawing no revision

revisions

rev. date description revised by

.( ).

PLANNING PROPOSEDGROUND FLOOR PLAN

K & V Ramachandran 13KELROSS ROADLONDONN5 2QS

1:100 @ A31:50 @ A1

19/12/11 BC 260 1 1.001 A

50 1 m

Hatching thus denotes new lean-to extension

A 2012.05.18 Height of lean-to extension reduced from 2600 to 2400mm BC

There was a discussion that by the time you have been to a site meeting, talked for at least 2 hours, travelled back, written up the minutes, formatted them, filed them correctly, responded to the queries that came up, done the neces-sary amendments to the drawings, then that is a day’s work. And it can’t be expected to take any less time than that.

It turns out that after meeting the conservation officer and the planner, who very much disap-proved of the Kelross road proposal; that we should still be able to extend due to PD (permit-ted development). Under PD you are allowed to extend 3 metres from the original rear wall. Normally the rear of the properties we work on has already been extended at some point in the history of the building, but at Kelross road, that was the way it was built originally, meaning we can actually go out further than our original proposal. In a way I agreed with the conserva-tion officers, the whole of the rear of the row of terraces that number 13 is within is in tact, which is architecturally quite “pure” and histor-ic. But on the other hand I have always found it to be one of the most successful attributes of London’s housing stock, that the front facade can remain the same and preserve a united and coherent street frontage, and the rear of the building can be adapted to the particular needs of the inhabitants, which is in my opinion one of the main characteristics of good architecture, that it can accommodate the human needs and be robust enough to allow life to make its im-pact on the building. i also don’t think that you ever experience the rear elevation as a united coherent thing because it is partitioned off all the way down the row by garden walls and so on. It also transpires that the neighbours may also wish to extend.

On a more personal level I am wondering if I am being used in the most useful way in the office. Everybody around me is very rushed. There were rather ominous meeting between various people and the two directors today. Christiane came out feeling extremely wound up. The gist of it is that Ed and Johnny want everything done yesterday, and Christiane does not have the time to get everything she needs done.

Planning submissions and tender omis-sions

Into month 3, and finding my feet.

Getting into the flow

A image of one of the 3ds I produced for the Project 44 Ferncroft Avenue, just to give the cli-ent an idea of what could happen.

Spent a day on sketch up. Was good to be thinking in 3d for once. I also got to think about the design of the landscaping for Ferncroft avenue. Found this satisfying as I know that if I come up with a good idea here it will get taken on board. Fitting university work around the job is becoming easier as I have allocated my hour long slot most mornings. This routine works well as I am fresh first thing and can get my thinking cap on. Most people seem a little less stressed as there is a sort of midweek flow. I know that I have a good amount of time to pro-duce the presentation images for the client on Ferncroft. We are waiting for confirmation that we can do what we think under PD for Kelross and then it will be my task to re-jig the scheme in accordance with the changes.

Due to this, I’m not sure I am being used in the right way. I am spending a lot of time on Auto-Cad. For instance the other day, I spent half the day re-drawing the bathroom drawings for what was really small scale changes to the minutiae of tiling layouts. I sat there, Christiane agonised over how to ge the tiles centred on the toilet or whatever, then she went through and de-scribed to me in detail what I needed to draw, annotating on the sheets which tiles needed to be moved where. of course our minds were changed a few times and so by the time all this had been decided then the drawings were a complete mess with lines all over the place. It was hard to tell what was a real line, an indica-tive line, a dimension that needed to be put on, or removed, and what was left over from a previous draft. So I spent a while picking through all these things. I felt like I was design-ing in a vacuum because I have never even met the clients or been to the site meeting or barely even seen the scheme before to get familiar with it. It just looks like every other undersized bathroom I’ve ever done an elevation for. So the end result was I had to go back and forth a few times between the printer, get it re-anno-tated by christiane, and make more changes. I am convinced that this task would have been better off just being done by her. All it was was moving a few little bits and pieces around, but it was extremely intricate and fussy and I got it wrong, whereas she would’ve just been able to trim and extend a few lines and get it spot on. There must be other types of work i can do like writing up site minutes or things like that, which would not only mean I got a better idea of the internal workings of the project., but would also mean I didn’t effectively get micromanaged to the extreme on AutoCad. I need to be given task where I can be invested in, and over time I will get better at them, not tasks that I am carrying out an incredibly specific set of exact instructions which by the time they have been explained to me, could have just been complet-ed by the explainer.

A complete re-design of the scheme. The sec-tion changed so that we didn’t have to excavate the basement, and just ran the ground floor striaght through so you get a storey and 3/4 height in the front room.

DINING

STORAGE

GUEST ROOM1F RM.03

GUEST ENSUITE1F RM.04

MASTER ENSUITE1F RM.02

MASTER BEDROOM1F RM.01

STUDY1F RM.03

BATHROOM2F RM.04

BOY'S ROOM2F RM.02

FAMILY ROOM2F RM.01

Ceiling height raised

Sliding shelving concealingentrance to ensuite

Bespoke joinery

Bi-folding doors3 leaves in W 2850mm x H 2435mm

Glazed roof over withtoughened glass DGUs

W 2850mm x L 2800 mm

Existing door to formal livingroom replaced by single toughendedglass unit W 815mm x H 2255 mmlooking down from entrance hallinto the open plan living space.

20m2 250mm deep sprayedMDF wall shelving with sliding ladder.

New ground bearing slab

Existing floor level lowered -35m2 rear suspended floor to be removed and new ground bearing slabformed to level of existing rear garden area.

scale

stage

E mail@lparchitects.co.ukW www.lparchitects.co.uk

Do not scale from this drawing. This drawing is copyright

Islington Green Studios81-83 Essex RoadIslingtonLondon N1 2SF

date issued drawn by

project

drawing title

T +44 (0)20 7288 1333F +44 (0)20 7288 0333

client

drawing no revision

revisions

rev. date description revised by

.( ).

PRE-CONSTRUCTION PROPOSEDSECTION E:E

K & V Ramachandran 13KELROSS ROADLONDONN5 2QS

1:100 @ A31:50 @ A1

13/02/13 BC 260 2 3.002 A

A 2012.04.05 Scheme revised after planning changes BC

Working to time constraints

Got back from a long weekend due to annual leave today. Feel filled with a new sense of per-spective after a life affirming few days. Spent the bulk of today preparing Kelross road draw-ings for issue to the engineer and the QS after all the changes wrought by our planning refus-al. It is quite interesting how this has impacted the scheme actually. We have gone for quality over quantity and sacrificed a substantial chunk of basment floor area in order to focus every-thing on the provision of an extremely generous open plan living area with a huge head height. We’ve got enough head room for those book-shelves with the sliding ladders now. The other thing is our use of precedent, there is a scheme by Jamie Forbert which operates a similar principle of getting rid of part of the split level plan to open up the enormous possible head height. Architecture is very much a contingent discipline, and although we are satisfied that we can get part of the scheme under permitted development, we are issuing the infill extension as a separate planning application, and we are getting information from structural engineers and the QS based on indeterminate information, because the client essentially needs to move things along.

Continued with sketch up model for Ferncroft Avenue. Started making changes to Kelross road to reflect the decisions of the planners and our ambition to submit this as permitted devel-opment. We are going out the maximum 3m at the rear. 3m in height is also the maximum. I believe that the plan actually works better now. It is important to get used to working within a contingent world, where things change on a daily basis due to the decisions of many exter-nal factors that have nothing to do with what goes on in the office. It is interesting to see how dependant we are on the information oth-ers provide as well. Tim Atwood, the consult-ing engineer for kelross Road is now away and so we are going to have to do a rough job of re-designing the steelwork in order to be able to get the information out to the QS. Every-thing is very dependant on time. The client wants things to get done as soon as possible. In light of this we issued a set of drawings for the strip out so that works can begin on this, before anything else is decided. The neighbours are not happy about our project and both sides have strongly objected but I don’t believe that they can do anything about permitted develop-ment. It does feel a bit like the extension on the back of Kelross is a symptom of the bloat-ing of wealth within a certain bracket of society, and a bracket of society that architects have to work with in order to sustain ourselves. This is only serving private interests. We never even drew the neighbouring properties on any of our plans. We live in the age of the socialisation of cost and the privatisation of gain, it has been said.

Some of the design work I have been doing on Fern-croft Avenue. This is an early ground floor plan, trying to connect woth double height spaces.

Progress with design

scale

stage

E mail@lparchitects.co.ukW www.lparchitects.co.uk

Do not scale from this drawing. This drawing is copyright

Islington Green Studios81-83 Essex RoadIslingtonLondon N1 2SF

date issued drawn by

project

drawing title

T +44 (0)20 7288 1333F +44 (0)20 7288 0333

client

drawing no revision

revisions

rev. date description revised by

.( ).

PLANNING PROPOSEDGROUND FLOOR PLAN

Landon Kulick 44FERNCROFT AVENUELONDONNW3 7PE

1:100 @ A31:50 @ A1

2012.03.06 RS 268 1 1.002 B

2012.03.31 Revised after comments back from client RS/BCA

2012.04.10 Revised after comments back from client RS/BCB

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A fun day. Spent most of the day doing actual design work. Ferncroft avenue. I had a meeting with Richard and Jonny and we discussed the changes that needed to be made to the Fern-croft scheme after their meeting with the client. It was a little strange as I was hearing second hand the changes that I was supposed to make. I feel I should have pressed to attend the meet-ing as it would have been very useful. I also have never even visited the site! Criminal in the WSA. As Stephen Kite would say, what is my reading of the site? Well it’s a few digital photo-graphs and a survey drawing done by someone else. That’s business Kitey. So we decided to raise the rear part of the house at LG and G floor, creating a small split level, but this makes all the difference in terms of the relationship of the scheme to the garden. The challenging aspect of this scheme is dealing with the steep topography in a north facing garden. We have a similar scheme called Bracknell gardens but the garden is south facing and the slope about a third as steep. For this reason we need to create the split level in Ferncroft avenue, or the rear facade would not be pleasant especially at ground floor level. I also issued a set of plan-ning drawings to the client and prepared the cover letter today. I am enjoying the increasing amount of emails in my inbox that are not just internal.

I also sent emails today to appoint surveyors for measured surveys on 2 different proper-ties. Jonathan was good and gave me the task of sending these emails, which I am confident wouldn’t have taken him too long, but he un-derstood was an important thing for me to understand. How these contractual agreements of who is going to do what work actually get made and money changes hands. We sent out the information to two different survey com-panies that we are familiar with, and interest-ingly they both came off better on different projects. We also had to take availability into account but they were evenly matched. one thing I am learning is that above all, time is off the essence. Time = Money. A truism, but not something architecture students bother to think about, or perhaps are not made aware of by our beaux-arts relic of a system.

The client for the project on Ferncroft avenue is a developer, and as such he asks for floor areas in Square Feet whenever we change the footprint of the design. This is telling of his view of architec-ture in terms of its exchange value and the way that the developer clients think as opposed to the small domestic ones.

Developer mindset

EXISTING BASEMENT FOOTPRINT 97m2 EXISTING GROUND FLOOR FOOTPRINT 211m2

Hatching indicates areaof possible extension

Hatching indicates areaof possible extension

Hatching indicates areaof possible extension

PROPOSED HATCHED AREA 176m2 PROPOSED HATCHED AREA 12m2

Hatching indicates areaof possible extension

Extent of ground floor reduced