The practice was approached by a private client to review the refurbishment and revitalisation of this 1960s – 1970s house like many others in the country. They love the spaces internally following their modernisation and improvement of the interior recently. However, they felt the exterior of the property needed to be completely changed to improve the aesthetic appearance.

Coupled with this is the issue facing a lot of the housing stock in the country – energy efficiency. As Retrofit assessors for existing buildings and heritage buildings we examined how best to improve the energy rating of the house and reduce their bills. The exterior treatment allowed for an insulation layer and airtight blanket wrapped around the whole building.

The final scheme was submitted to Daventry District Council Planning and Conservation Department and used a combination of buff light cream brickwork to the upper half and vertical Sioo:X treated timber cladding to the lower half.

Also, we have expressed certain window openings with flared sills, heads or jambs to soften the brickwork with inset timber detailing. Then the large flat roof areas will eventually have an overlaid green sedum roof applied to improve their outlook from the first-floor level.

The construction work was completed in May 2024 by Artifex Build (https://www.artifexbuild.co.uk/) based in the Northampton area. There attention to the construction when using our detailed drawings has been spot on – always nice to see the details come to life.

Photographs taken by: Thomas Pitt (https://www.thompitt.com/)