Lime House, London Property Renovation Project, Home Expansion, English Residence Images
Lime House, South London
11 Aug 2020
Lime House in London
Design: COX ARCHITECTS
Location: London, England, UK

Lime House is a conversion of a derelict commercial premises into a light filled, four bedroom family home in South London, UK.

The Brief

To transform a 95 sqm derelict shop on a tiny site in a Conservation Area into a spacious four bedroom family house!

Key Challenges

The main challenge was to find sufficient additional floor area on a tiny plot under the strict local planning controls.

The Solutions

A lot of patience! Initially, as a part-commercial building, local restrictions meant we could not adequately convert the whole structure so the work was split into two phases over an 8 year period with the loft being added (under permitted development rules) in 2020.
Working creatively with the local plannning authority also meant we could profit from the site’s end-of-terrace location to ‘build up’ a new street facade behind which the house could expand without eating into the garden or pushing too much habitable space into a cave like basement.

Key products used:

The key to the design… is hydraulic lime! Hence the name Lime House. The exterior brickwork was coated with a thin lime ?slurry? which gives a very matt, veil-like wash over the bare brick.
To complement the lime wash the minimal framed timber windows were lightly treated with a pale ...