Dynamitecture's Portfolio

Residential

Poplar House

Poplar House refurbishment Poplar House refurbishment Poplar House refurbishment Poplar House refurbishment Poplar House refurbishment

This project was designed to turn the ground floor into a large open plan living area, which flowed into the garden. The modern design, counterpoints and complements the existing house in equal measure externally, and internally the layout is more user friendly than before. The introduction of a utility room into the home avoided the living area becoming too noisy, and converting the garage into a guest bedroom with en-suite gives the client the option to use just the ground floor in the future, thereby broadly complying with Lifetime Homes guidance.

Vinegar Hill

Vinegar Hill refurbishment Vinegar Hill refurbishment Vinegar Hill refurbishment Vinegar Hill refurbishment Vinegar Hill refurbishment

This project is currently under construction, and seeks to refurbish this characterful townhouse. Located with views over the river and town, the existing room layout is being reorganised to maximise these views. With the kitchen being moved to the lowest room and the existing lean-to kitchen, being insulated and a new roof installed, with the space being coverted to a utility and wc. Above the new kitchen the bathroom is being moved and a new living area being created which is open to the stairs to allow additional light into the internal hall area. Additionally a new heating system is being installed, and the existing gas fires being removed and replaced in the dinning room with a wood burning stove. New windows are being installed to replace the inappropriate uPVC and single glazed windows.

Overall the refurbishment should reduce the cost of running the property, extend the life of the building and improve its functionality, whilst maintaining the character of the property.

Garden Court

Garden Court Front Elevation

Completed on behalf of DPA (London) Ltd: www.dpa-architects.co.uk

This project converted two ground floor garages and the existing first floor flat into three two bedroom properties, with high end finishes, soundproofing and insulation. The garage courtyard and first floor flat are part of a 1960s develoment, and the original drawings where used for contextualising the design, whilst bringing it into the modern era.

Commercial

Sun Street

Sun Street regeneration Sun Street regeneration Sun Street regeneration Sun Street regeneration Sun Street regeneration

Completed on behalf of DPA (London) Ltd: www.dpa-architects.co.uk

As part of a series of regeneration projects along Sun Street in Waltham Abbey, numbers 17/19 and later 15 Sun Street all saw ground floor refurbishments and conversion of the upper floors into a mixture of either one or two bedroom flats. Number 19 is a Grade II Listed building and the work involved significant demolision of inappropriate 1970s construction and reconfiguration of the building to re-insert the traditional rear courtyard. This courtyard provides access to the upper floor flats. The Conservation and Historic Buiding officers required that the rear elevation contextualised the rear two storey element of 17 Sun Street, which was the only two storey frontage adjoining the rear street.

Number 15 (completed work not shown in images) involved re-instating the original roof, and converting this along with the first floor into flats. The ground floor was converted into vets, with the existing Doggie Salon at the rear being retained and improved.

The images show the rear of numbers 17/19 after the completion of the upper floor works, and the final image is the completion of ground floor subdivision, with new occupants in number 19.

Conceptual

Urban Eco

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The idea is to re-imagine the skyscraper as a place for communities to live, develop and thrive, living vertically instead of spread out horizontally. Maintaining and improving urban density and the associated rich layered communities and complex urban dynamics, whilst reducing the CO2 footprint and creating healthier lifestyles. Borrowing ideas used by Le Corbusier in his Unite d'Habitation theories and looking into ideas developed by Stefano Boeri on his Bosco Verticale project, along with the multi-use planning policies used to develop Vancouver into one of world's most liveable cities. The project aims to create a concept that can be applied in full or partially for smaller sites, or even retrospectively into existing skyscrapers or residential tower blocks. The concept will use the skyscraper to allow for high density living, combined with large areas of office and retail to minimise travel. To offset the dense urban nature of the project, the high density planting ideas behind the Bosco Verticale will be expanded to allow the building to feel like a vertical garden, with each residential unit having its own private garden. On full scale implementation of this concept, there will be a need for a fully integrated transport solution to be devised, providing direct access to building from the transport network. By using underground tunnels, the land above will be free for schools, hospitals and to be landscaped into parkland for the enjoyment of the surrounding community.

Presented here is an interpretation of the concept as a new build. Here the tower's frame allows two unit sizes to be slotted into it. In this case either a two or three bed residential unit or correspondingly sized office/shop unit. The ground floor contains larger retail units. All units in the scheme have two floors and dual aspect to ensure the internal spaces are of a high quality, with good levels of natural daylighting. To avoid excessive solar gain, the native planting along with the deep balconies ensure solar shading. The use of native planting allows the tower to adapt to the seasons; such as deciduous trees shedding leaves during winter, therefore increasing the solar gain into the building when required most. Grey water recycling would be used to water the plants.

There are two flexible and open levels in the tower, one for a market, the other for the roof garden. These spaces allow the community to adapt them to their needs. Maybe they wish to hold an outside cinema club once a month, or community day during the summer, these space would be able to accommodate this. In this example there is a pre-school located in the roof garden to be used by residents.

The intension is the majority of local facilities should be provided within the tower; such as corner shops, pubs, hairdressers and take-aways. Along with some office spaces and some major retail outlets. However no single tower should provide everything for its populace as this could cause a ghetto like urban environment (with each tower being its own isolated community), devoid of diversity which is key to a cosmopolitan environment. Schools and leisure complexes and other such developments would be used by multiple tower blocks to over come this potential issue.