Church Crescent

About this project

The Project

Conveniently located in the heart of Finchley in North London, Church Crescent is a residential street of large semi-detached family homes. The project, executed by Evonort Architects for a private client, had three particular goals; a rear extension to create an informal dining area bridging the half storey change in level between the kitchen and garden terrace; rearranging the first floor bedrooms to form a master bedroom suite; and excavating part of the basement to increase headroom and create an additional bedroom and shower. 

Every extension project is unique and Evonort Architects worked closely with the client to create a modern and bespoke extension that would sensitively integrate with the brick house and mature garden. Evonort sought to specify just one material that would be suitable for both the interior joinery and the exterior of the extension. After extensive research, American white oak was selected as the timber of choice.  For the exterior walls, the unfinished creamy light brown tones of American white oak - which will weather naturally and require little maintenance for the life of the building - appealed to both the client and architect. In contrast to the natural finish cladding, pre-finished engineered white oak boards were suitable for the interior floor, steps and joinery in the extended dining area as it is a hard and heavy wood with a medium bending quality and visually appealing. 

Square sections of natural American white oak were used to clad the extension walls and roof, surrounding the glazed sliding doors and large roof light. The solid white oak rain screen cladding helped to achieve a detailed bespoke and contemporary aesthetic manner following the slope of the roof. Carrying the cladding over the roof with flush detailing to the roof-light helped to enhance the building when viewed at any angle. This gave the extension a sharp and dynamic appeal whilst sensitively integrating the extension with the brick house and mature garden.