CASE STUDY: ALL THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS

Getting the right house in the right area at the right price is an impossible dream for most of us. Something has to give. For the owners in this case, it was the house.

- Judy Diamond

BRIEF To create an open, welcoming kitchen with adjoining dining and living spaces, all with an improved connection to the back garden

DIMENSIONS 42 sq.m

COST PER SQ.M £2,380 (including kitchen and fittings etc)

TIMESCALE Six months on site

MAIN CONTRACTOR QBuildJOINERY QBuild and Archispek

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER Design Engineering Workshop

DESIGN Iain Monteith and Jamie Mack

ARCHITECT Loader Monteith, loadermonteith.co.uk

The location, Jordanhill in the west end of Glasgow, was perfect, and it was affordable. But the Victorian terraced property had seen better days and really wasn’t making the most of its assets. The dark, cramped galley kitchen in particular suffered as a result of the poorly arranged ground floor, and the owners, Charlotte and Stuart, were convinced the only way they could get the bright, communal kitchen and living area they craved was to sacrifice a chunk of garden to build an extension.

Most of the architects they spoke to were all for it, but not Loader Monteith, a Glasgow practice known for its clever problem solving and thoughtful approach. “I told them I didn’t think they needed to extend,” says lead architect Iain Monteith. “Adding more space would just have been building upon the mistakes that were already there.

“Instead, having listened to how Charlotte and Stuart wanted their home to work with their lifestyle, we had the idea of rearranging the existing spaces rather than making a larger one.”