Extending and Altering - first thoughts

I recently presented 3 design solutions to a young couple for alterations and extension to their Victorian semi-detached house in Cherry Hinton.

We met in a coffee shop on Mill Road in Cambridge and on the way I cut through the cemetery, glancing up at the backs of the same era of semi-detached houses as theirs.

Victorian terrace - rear view

It was clear to me that we could have walked along together and picked their options from the selection of box dormers, extended side returns, garden rooms and infills on display just in that row of houses.  I thought about all the rear elevations of all the Victorian streets in Cambridge and then I thought about all the housing in Cambridge in general.  I thought about all the people, like my clients, wanting to live in the city and trying to find the balance between fitting their lives to the house they have and the house to the lives they want.

Victorian houses are well over 100 years old.  They were built without central heating, without insulation, without bathrooms and without electricity (see this article on the history of electric lighting).  When we build on to these houses we work to all the current Building Regulations so these drafty, heat emitting houses can have super efficient nodules bolted on.  I've never questioned the principle of this but looking at that row of houses I couldn't help thinking this is all just lip service to any idea of improving our housing.

What will these streets look like, how will they fit people's lives and the demands of the environment in the next 100 years?  What would it take for us to knock any of them down?  Now, I am doing similar work for folks living in early 20th century houses, inter-war houses, post war houses...the youngest one would be a 1980s house, the oldest is a listed 17th century cottage.  I'm not saying we shouldn't be altering our houses - I'd be out of work for a start - but I am questioning the bigger picture.  At the same time as commissioning my design solutions for their current house, my Cherry Hinton clients have been looking at newly built houses as an option.  Sadly they cannot find anything they feel would suit them as a family.

I was moved to trawl the bookshops of Cambridge yesterday in search of the history of the city's development.  (It's a challenge, I tell you, the glare of Cambridge University seems to bleach out any sense of the city around it.) I want to understand the chronology of house types and relate it to the social norms of the time.  I'm hoping, then, to reflect on our 'way of living' today and our expectations of our houses given that most of them were built for a different 'way of living'.

Somewhere in me I am wondering if it's the house or the living that has to change.

Studio Hobohm initial design proposal for rear extension and loft conversion...to be continued.

It's December 2016.

This has been such a challenging year for me personally and such an unsettling year for everyone.

Whatever your politics you cannot deny the rumbling of change coming.  I picture a kind of giant theatre stage with automated backdrops, revolving centre pieces and disappearing props, or a child's puzzle that you fold and fold to reveal a new picture out of the old one.

Ordinarily change excites me but the off-shoots from this scene-change leave me sad and fearful.  I have been searching myself to think how to come to terms with this.  Carrying on regardless seems an obvious choice.  What, after all, is actually different for me this December to last December?  My business is thriving.  I need staff to manage the growing demand and Cambridge feels like it has it's own bubble of enterprise and wealth.  Yet an Asian family round the corner had their taxi set on fire a couple of months ago.  My skin colour, my education, my wealth and my nationality might mean I don't experience any changes but that doesn't mean they are not happening.

I have a major anti-establishment-hippy streak in me which wants to run for the hills, live off the land and every other isolating, self enhancing cliche you can think of.  I remember a conversation with a Buddhist about what he would do to prevent war and his answer was to meditate.  It was a lovely idea to think that in some way his calmness would radiate around him and permeate to the next person who in turn would sit down and meditate, spreading the rings of calmness a bit further, until we were all sitting down and being calm and there was no longer any conflict. I got it, sort of, but I'm not able to believe in it.  It's not me.  I'm a do-er.

So it is events like our last CWIC meet-up of the year yesterday which give me hope and belief.  The 'global situation' is simply too big.  I like to think locally, community, one to one.  Our group is not a game-changer but it is just one example of how people can bond with one thing in common - being women in the construction industry - and then reach out across so many differences.  We were polite, friendly, welcoming, interested, interesting, funny and supportive with each other.  This is what the world needs.  Thank you everyone.

CWIC End of Year Lunch - Sponsored by Vinci Construction at the Burleigh Arms, Cambridge