Dice

Our clients, a husband and wife had bought a tiny dilapidated bungalow within the Surrey Heath green belt with the idea that one day they would replace it with a modern, environmentally conscious and practical home.

After extensive online research they approached us, stating that it was the planning complexity and success of our ‘Tetris house, Chiswick’ accompanied by our use of Game Theory, which made them certain we were the best architects to deliver their dream home.

It was immediately obvious that because the replacement home they craved was to be far larger than the existing bungalow, any design would contravene the local planning guidelines in terms of size. And as their budget would not allow any below ground excavation, it was fundamental that from the outset, we prioritized the range of client requirements in order to remove unnecessary excess from the design.

We achieved this by asking the clients to list 10 project ingredients, such as cost, wow factor, sunlight, time, and then to rank each item’s importance out of a score of 10, with the same number never to be used twice. These formed our unique quantitative brief and ‘Utility’ graphs, uncovering opportunities, surprises and relationships, which drove the simple box form arrangement, sizes and positioning. For example, it transpired the husband’s No.1 priority was to have a double garage, which surprised not only himself but his wife.

But even with this streamlined and efficient design we were aware the proposal would still be 30% larger than the council’s planning policy would allow. We therefore highlighted to the council, through simple 2d drawings and mathematics that a series of extensions to the existing bungalow, which would be possible under a different planning route called ‘permitted development’, would total more in area and volume than our new build house. A formal application was submitted and approved by the council.