With ground levels falling by more than half a metre across the depth of the house, followed by a further 1.5 metre drop to the rear lawn, creating a natural connection between house and garden was the key challenge.

The brief was to design an extension that avoided the feeling of stepping out onto a precipice, while also preventing intrusive balustrades or edge protection from interrupting views towards the garden.

Our response was to treat the extension, terrace and landscape as one composition. A generous contemporary terrace mediates between the internal floor level and the garden below, with integrated steps creating a more gradual and intuitive transition through the site.

The extension itself uses a restrained, timeless material palette, allowing the architecture and landscape to work together. The result is a far stronger relationship between house and garden, with views preserved and the change in level becoming part of the design rather than a constraint.