Period restoration: Striking a balance between old and new

Looking into the back gardens of the Victorian houses in Sandymount from the Dart gives a near perfect picture of the variety of sizes and shapes of modern extensions on period properties that were prolific in the boom.

In some areas, entire terraces have a hotchpotch of modern extensions in gardens that previously accommodated sheds, coal scuttles and other random storage amid fruit trees and herbaceous borders.

These contemporary extensions are described as "an almost invisible remaking of the city of Dublin" by Michael Pike and Emmett Scanlon in their academic paper, Habitus: A Social Anthropology of the Contemporary Dublin House Extension (Royal Irish Academy Publication 111C, 2011). Some of those lauded designs are now, however, viewed more circumspectly than when they were first built.

In her recent Irish Georgian Society talk, Sensitively Extending your Period House, Nicola Matthews, architectural conservation officer at Dublin City Council, raised a number of issues one must consider before extending a Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian or early 20th century house.

Before you start, Matthews suggests looking into the history of your house to see where it sat in a historic estate or what orientation it had to a particular landscape feature or a river.

“You can view your house at different points of time on myplan.ie. You can see when returns were added to properties, their size and role, and how a classical return was part of the hierarchy of the space and the overall fabric of the house, giving it dual aspects of public and private spaces,” says Matthews.

Understanding the significance of returns on period properties is important in the context of extensions as most of them are added to the rear of the properties in an effort to create open-plan living space.

Similarly, understanding the role of early extensions, conservatories and annexes can allow extensions to fit better into the original house.

Criticisms

One of the biggest criticisms against many of the extensions built in the 1990s and 2000s is that they drew the occupants of the houses into these new contemporary spaces, leaving the original houses for more formal, infrequent entertaining. In their paper, Pike and Scanlon argue that the larger rooms and spaces of period houses often did not reflect the self-image of their modern residents and owners.

“As a result, once the extension is built, it frequently becomes the primary locus of domestic activity and the older house forms a backdrop to everyday life . . . Real life is lived in the contemporary, made-to-measure extension, which commonly serves as a location of cooking and eating, indoor and outdoor living, completing homework, watching television and the other routines of daily life.”

Matthews warns against this undermining of the original fabric and use of the house and encourages home-owners to consider this before extending their period homes. One must also be aware of how the extension will change the context of the house: the size of the garden and the entire vista of a terrace as well as practical issues such as the possible reduction of privacy and light for neighbours.

How the extension fits into the existing house, its plot width, party walls, drainage and access will be key issues which an architect will need to address. The height, proximity to boundaries and overlooking from new windows will be of most concern to neighbours. The rules regarding what constitutes acceptable exempted planning developments are clearly laid out in the Planning and Development Acts, 2000 and 2001 and the Planning and Development Regulations, 2000 and 2001.

‘Breathability’

However, there are other less immediately obvious issues that must also be considered when adding an extension to an older property. These issues relate to the “breathability” of houses built of solid masonry.

“Chimneys on the return in period houses are valuable for regulating moisture from the returning structure and while Dublin City Council is sympathetic to altering properties at lower levels, the chimney stack must be retained,” says Matthews.

Historic boundary walls should also be retained, and any potential loss of light into the original house due to the roof height of the extension must be considered, she says.

Modern kitchens, bathrooms, utilities, showers and toilets built in extensions can cause a build-up of condensation in an older house. Moving a kitchen to an extension can also remove the historic thermal value of a warm kitchen sending heat up through the house from a warm basement.

Regulating temperatures between the older structure and the extension is also something that requires expert attention.

“The interface between the modern and the historic is complicated. The extra heat and moisture generated will be regulated differently in the original house and the extension and, if not managed correctly, condensation will become a problem,” says Matthews.

Ultimately, the consensus among conservationists now is that the extension to a period property must not overwhelm the original building but instead resonate well with it.

“The key is to have a soft link between the older and new and to work, where possible, respecting the original footprint of the house, understanding the balance between the requirements for the extension and good neighbourliness,” says Matthews.

Past and present the best way to restore

Adding an extension to a historic house can often result in a building divided in two with each part fighting for attention, a bit like competitive siblings who have never dealt with their differences.

The key to a successful extension to a period property is to be confident yet not cocky with the new part and comfortable but not complacent about the original house.

A beautifully restored terraced Victorian house on Synge St, Dublin 8 is a perfect example of this compromise.

“The house, which was bought by the present owners in 2012, was in 12 bedsits – four on each floor – with a 1970s extension to the rear with toilets and kitchenettes,” says Benan Clancy, senior architect with Blackwood Associates Architects.

The entire house has been restored to a high standard with a two-storey over-basement modern extension added to the rear.

“We kept the proportions of all the main rooms as they were, redesigned the kitchen in the original kitchen space, adding a flat-roofed eating area to the back,” says Clancy, who designed and oversaw the project from beginning to end.

The rooms in the extension – a sunken family room on basement level, a study on ground-floor level and a bedroom on the first floor – are all accessed via steps at half-floor levels.

This creates a subtle link between old and new, allowing the new rooms, with large corner windows, to show off their modernity without clashing with the reception rooms and their restored plasterwork and fireplaces in the original house.

Similarly, on the outside, the modern extension is allowed to shine without the older house being overwhelmed.

The clever use of white brick on the exterior walls of en suite bathrooms, a toilet and laundry room separates these spaces from the main rooms in the extension which are coated in a lime render. The same lime mortar is used on the exterior rear wall of the original house.

“The idea was to keep to one material and one colour to control the overall style,” says Clancy.

The flat roof on the breakfastroom is also not too high to intrude on the light and views from the windows in the dining room and first floor bedroom.

So how do the owners feel about the merging of the old with the new in their restoration project?

“We’re delighted that 41 Synge Street has been brought back into use as a family home. The sensitive restoration of the period features has made all the difference to the atmosphere,” say Ana Grenfell and Philip McDonagh.

“The new extension is very modern and yet fits in sympathetically and effectively with the old part of the house. Blackwood has successfully merged the old and the new.”