Canopy House: A Light-Filled Edwardian Home Transformation
Canopy House unifies a previously divided Edwardian home in Chiswick, reworking circulation, adding a dormer, and creating a striking curved rear extension that connects the house to its generous garden. Guided by a fabric-first environmental strategy, the design uses passive solar principles to maximise natural light and climate control. The extension’s gently curving façade sits beneath a perforated canopy that filters sunlight like a leafy tree canopy, creating a soft, dappled light effect while shading the expansive glazing and transforming the way the family lives with the outdoors.
Canopy House
This project adapts an existing semidetached Edwardian home in Chiswick, London that had been previously divided into two separate flats with various ad-hoc extensions and modifications.
Additional floor area was not the primary role of this extension, it was the desire to unify the home through reworked circulation, a new dormer extension and most importantly an inventive contemporary rear extension.
The pre-existing rear conservatory was of poor architectural merit that acted as a barrier from the main house to the mature generous garden.
Developing a clear conceptual environmental approach was at the heart of the scheme from the outset. The clients lifestyle is focused around the outdoors so they had a good understanding of climate control and natural methods of heating and cooling. TCA worked closely with the client to develop a fabric first environmental design strategy whereby passive design solutions maximised benefits of the sites south facing aspect.
The proposed massing of the extension reflects the neighbouring stepped extension, but with a curved facade, and extends out to match the projection of the adjoining extension. Our ambition was to contrast the typical box extension seen along the street with a curved façade that peels gently beneath an incredibly light perforated canopy.
This canopy creates a soft dappled light reminiscent of morning sunshine through the leafy canopy and acts as a solar shade to the impressive, curved glazing below.
