London studio Selencky Parsons has repurposed a former apple store into an extension for a home in West Sussex.
In the town of East Grinstead, Selencky Parsons has transformed what was once an old apple store for a manor house into a home that unites the previously disconnected elements on its site. Originally, the single storey property comprised a series of disconnected rooms, joined by two large greenhouses also on the grounds.
Selencky Parsons was briefed to extend the house by adding new kitchen, dining, and living areas as well as a master bedroom, while establishing a stronger connection to the garden the house finds itself within.
The extension to the old apple store sees the kitchen, dining and living areas open up to the garden on the ground floor, achieved through floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors that offer expansive views across the garden, and open up to facilitate direct access to it.
Inside, the new extension is connected to the former apple store via a central circulation spine that spans both, joining the two via a glazed link. In doing so, the link creates a small, landscaped courtyard which is complemented by an existing brick arch, that looks out towards the garden.
While predominantly an open plan home, these ground floor areas are delineated by the house’s roofscape in three pitches, and also by brick columns that extend part of the roofline out the patio. Here, a single pitch protrudes out from the kitchen, with the dining area and living room either side. The mini loggia, of sorts, is in fact a continuation of the fin walls from inside, with openings punched into them to form bench seats. Extending the roof here visually softens the change in height as a above the living room is the master bedroom, also allowing for shadows to be cast the patio and brick walls throughout the day.
Beyond the open plan kitchen is a generous sunken living room space with triple aspect views of the surrounding garden.
The three pitches of the standing seam zinc roof mirrors the apple store’s existing roofscape, also featuring three pitches. Selencky Parsons’s work sees the extension’s roofscape rotated 90 degrees, allowing the long views down the garden. While the clearly modern roof reflects the original building in form, the brick base does so in materiality.
In between the two materials is a continuous datum line that mimics the defined eaves line of the existing house, further aligning the extension with the original building.
“The Old Apple Store project was a great opportunity to completely re think a property set in a fantastic semi-rural location,” David Parsons, director at Selencky Parsons, told AT. “The new design gives little away from the new entrance but reveals itself once within through a central spine that connects a series of exciting, varied and considered living spaces that draw in the surrounding landscape.”
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