Clerkenwell mixed-use: Investigating a unique property
Rosalind and Matt* owned businesses in both Bath and London, and regularly travelled between the two cities. Thinking about spending more time in London to be closer to family as they grow older, they initially searched for houses to buy before they hit upon the idea of expanding the flat above their London business premises.
The client
A photograph of one of the existing rooms to be renovated.
They used Preview Studio to look into the planning implications of making changes to their listed building before committing to a construction project and giving up their search for a separate London base.
One of the four Preview Studio visualisations showing how that same room could appear post-renovation.
They had bought their listed, mixed-use building over 20 years ago, with commercial use at street level and first floor level and a tiny flat at the top level. It is in a conservation area, and knew from previous roof repairs that work to a listed building wasn't always straightforward in planning terms.
Their building
Existing plans of part of the commercial premises and the 1-bedroom flat above, made by Preview Studio from a video. Click on the images to see larger versions.
Their brief was to expand their pied-a-terre into a permanent home big enough for the two of them by swapping commercial space for residential. They wanted to know:
Would they need planning permission for purely internal changes?
How could they reorganise the space they had to create a new entrance for the flat?
Their questions
Proposed plans of part showing how part of the commercial premises could be added to the flat to add a second bedroom, ensuite, and new living space with direct connection to the new kitchen. Click on the images to see larger versions.
A Preview Studio pack started them on their journey, with a sketch design that showed how they could double the area of the flat and create a beautiful open plan kitchen / dining and living space on one level. It also answered their questions about planning permission: They would need to make a planning application for the change of use, for one, and would need a pre-application meeting with the council to discuss if listed building consent was needed. The case for receiving listed building consent, should it be needed, was good, though the change of use application would likely require a high degree of justification.
Their Preview Studio pack
Planning advice page from the Preview Studio pack.
The ‘numbers’ section of the Preview Studio pack showed that they could increase the size of the flat from only 40.5 sq m (small even for a 1-bedroom property) up to a respectable 73 sq m 2-bedroom flat. No external work would limit the costs somewhat, but as they wanted to install a new kitchen and a new bathroom, as well as refresh the walls, floors and ceilings, the rough cost was likely somewhere between £21k and £37k.
Rosalind and Matt didn't do anything further immediately, but when they decided to move forward with their plans they used the Preview Pack as the brief when hiring an architect to take the project through planning for them.
The numbers
Rosalind and Matt ordered a Preview Studio pack plus planning advice.
*Names have been changed for privacy reasons.
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