Staying within your comfort zone is all very well, but when it comes to architecture, courage can work wonders. When a London couple in their thirties decided to upgrade their garden flat in Hackney, it also won them an award.
Their one-bedroom ground-floor home in an early Victorian terrace had an original brick dog leg at the back, creating a fairly useless side return, while the garden was shared with the maisonette upstairs.
The dog leg space contained the couple’s cramped kitchen, at the end of which was a rubbish bathroom that hogged the south-facing best bit of the flat, with just a small window to the garden. What a waste all this was.
The upstairs owners decided to move, but wanted to sell with a separate, rather than a shared, garden. The owners of both flats agreed to build an external stair, and the garden was divided. The ground-floor