EDITOR ' S CHOICE
THE ATHLETES HOUSE
A private bespoke extension in Hampshire
The Athletes House is a private bespoke extension located in Hampshire completed in Autumn 2021 by award-winning , Winchester-based Architects AR Design Studio . The clients came to the Studio with the brief to extend and transform their 1950s home .
Though the clients describe themselves as “ polar opposites in the things we like and the way we live ,” spatially they both wanted to extend the living space at ground floor to open the house up to the garden and achieve an extra bedroom on the first floor . They are also both extremely active and regularly compete in triathlons . Fuelled by lock-down , a crucial element of the design was a gym and 25m external lap pool where they could train for events from their home .
The couple were divided on one key point , whether to keep the existing 20th-century house and its low-quality , piecemeal additions to the sides and rear . AR was posed with the question “ What to do when a couple wants two different things ; one wants to live in a traditional house and one wants to live in a contemporary dwelling ?”
AR ' s strategy was not so much to extend the existing dwelling , but rather to build a new house on the back of the old one . This way , both parties received what they wanted . This entailed reorienting the internal layout , with the key spaces now sitting within the new build physically connected to the garden .
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