Track Record/Camden

Hampstead has many beautiful tall redbrick houses, and this one, not far from the Freud Museum, has a sensitively planted roof terrace with views across London. As part of our comprehensive refurbishment, with contractors Boldfort, HEAT obtained planning permission for a new helical staircase and sliding mechanical rooflight to take you up to this paradise in NW3.

Project 206

In the early C19th The Vale of Health was a country lane on Hampstead Heath; a short journey out of the smoke and squalor of Camden and a place to spend the weekend at one of the hotels around Hampstead Pond. To this day it feels as though the sprawl of London jumped over the Vale of Health and left this piece of rus in urbe intact. Our clients bought a house with views over the pond, but which needed complete restoration including underpinning and a new roof. A careful study of old maps suggested the site had once housed arbours and “grottoes”; romantic artificial caverns along the lakeside, which explain the extensive groundworks required. These kind of works are often stressful to neighbours, and Camden Council have been careful to review the proposals, but HEAT successfully gained planning consent for the restoration and a new glazed extension at a meeting of the Camden Planning Committee.

We are delighted to have obtained planning and listed building consent for alterations to a beautiful Regency house in St John’s Wood. The internal alterations have allowed the creation of bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms at the second floor level. In order to persuade the Conservation officer of the appropriateness of our proposals we compared the layouts of 11 adjacent houses and proved that we were returning the room layouts closer to the original design. The design includes a stunning master bathroom in bookmatched marble.

Project 178

We were excited to discover a lost basement staircase in an unusual C18th house in Bloomsbury and with the help of Mark Strawbridge from the Museum of London obtained Listed Building consent to re-open it, helping turn the house back to residential use following conversion from offices. The balustrade of the main stair above is an unusual design sometimes referred to as “Chinese Chippendale”

Project 176

HEAT have obtained planning consent for a landmark development of nine news houses on a sensitive site near Swiss Cottage. This valuable consent generated 1364 sqm of floorspace to replace a two of lock-up garages and was a well-thought out solution for an awkward site. The design of the houses responded to the scale and patterns of the Victorian mews houses opposite and was carefully designed to meet the requirements for daylight and sunlight.

Project 090

No planning consent was necessary to undertake the refurbishment of this apartment in Hampstead that had been neglected for many years. Although it was a spacious property every detail of the interior was planned and drawn in detail. There was little original fabric to be found but when we uncovered a tessellated tile floor in the kitchen we left it covered in glass and lit as though it were an archaeological excavation. This project was a lot of fun!

Project 038

Sometimes planning consent is not necessary and for a charming detached cottage in the Vale of Health in Hampstead we were able to create an extension and alter the glazing under permitted development rules.

Permitted development is particularly valuable as it allows a much faster start on site, without waiting for planning consent. It can also be used to negotiate with planning authorities. We obtained a “Certificate of Lawful Proposed Use or Development” from the London Borough of Camden which is the pice of paper that you need when you come to sell the house and the lawyers ask whether you have planning consent for that extension.

Project 039

A beautiful maisonette in an early Victorian house in Hampstead with French doors leading out onto private gardens on three sides, this project had many original interior features intact. Sometimes a little sensitive tweaking to the layouts are all that is required. In this case the conversion into flats in the 1920’s had left some awkward spaces that no longer made sense and we were able to rearrange the interior layouts and introduce some additional windows, restoring the original features such as vaulted stone ceilings.

The interior was fitted out in a highly contemporary style. HEAT designed built-in furniture and leather panelling, manufactured in Italy, custom lighting made in the UK and the custom-built kitchen made in Germany. The interior furnishings were designed to visually not quite touch the walls which helped separate the old and new, a sensitive  approach that was praised by the conservation team from Camden Council.

Project 032

HEAT have obtained planning consent from the London Borough of Camden for the conversion of a former coach house in Frognal, Hampstead. This was a straightforward side extension to match the original Victorian building and a roof conversion involving new dormer windows and a window cleverly inserted into the hipped gable.

Project 036