Family Home Extension with Spectacular Glazed Sliding Doors

Large glazed sliding doors from IDSystems allow for open corners on this impressive modern addition

A large family home has been completely transformed with an amazing single-storey extension. Located on a quiet road in a leafy London suburb, this large red-brick detached home was in need of a rethink. The owners approached Coleman Anderson Architects, based in Tunbridge Wells, for ideas on how to create space that would work effectively for an ever-growing family.

The owners had added a PVCu conservatory more than 20 years ago. This time around, they were looking to create a larger, more usable space that was better connected to the garden, and with a large plot, there was plenty of room to extend their home’s footprint.

Architect Sam Nicholls was tasked with the challenge. “When we talked to the owners, it was clear that the layout of the ground floor wasn’t working anymore,” says Sam. “As their lives got busier, the times they spent together as a family became even more important. A large entertaining space that would become the heart of the home was key.”
The south-facing garden opened up a number of potential design opportunities that would help to fill the new extension with natural light, but to achieve the enhanced connection between house and garden meant being able to seamlessly open up the back of the house.

“The owners were really keen to break down the boundaries between inside and out and to extend the house beyond its physical threshold to create an amazing space for entertaining,” says Sam. “We knew we wanted to incorporate large panes of glass so sliding doors were always our preferred option, but we looked long and hard at the different systems out there to find the perfect one.”

The depth of the extension and the remodelled interior space leant themselves perfectly to creating a floating corner that required as little structure as possible. From the project’s conception, the intention for the design was to make any structural profiles as slim as possible and create the impression that the roof and facade of the extension were one continuous piece of folding metal.

“The key to successfully delivering this was going to be in the design and specification of the doors. In order to maximise the opening, we wanted to be able to slide the panels on the return into a pocket in the wall so that when they were slid back, it created a completely unobstructed opening,” says Sam. “On the longer side, the doors span almost 7.5m across, so it was important to maximise the amount of glass and avoid having chunky frames.”

Having worked with award-winning glazing specialists IDSystems in the past, Sam knew that theEDGE2.0 ultra-slim sliding door would provide the hugely versatile design that their plans for the extension demanded.

“Whilst there are plenty of really slim sliding door systems on the market, we knew we needed more than just the standard model to get it right for this client. That is where IDSystems came in,” he says. “With theEDGE2.0 system, it can be designed to incorporate open corners and panels sliding into a pocket in the wall. Being able to incorporate both of these features in the same system with sleek and narrow 20mm frames was the clincher.”

“The IDSystems technical team went above and beyond to make recommendations and to finalise the design, and the end result is absolutely stunning,” he adds. “The homeowner couldn’t be happier, and nor could we as the architects. The sliding doors were the perfect finishing touch to an incredible home transformation.”

Location Sidcup, Kent

Extension size 59.5m2

Total ground floor 203.5m2

Construction method Brick, block and steel

Building work took Six months

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