Architects Dalston
Architects Dalston
Architects Dalston
About us
Scenario has led architectural projects in and around East London for more than a decade. From our offices on the Regent’s Canal, we’ve built an extensive portfolio of domestic architecture across Hackney and into Islington.
Our landmark projects range from double-height extensions and new-build infill houses to our own home, on a quiet residential terrace in Stoke Newington, Hackney. The extension and refurbishment to that period house earned us recognition from juries across the country – including a place on the shortlist for the 2018 RIBA London Award.
Founding partners Ran Ankory and Maya Carni took on their first property, a three-bedroom flat in Stoke Newington, as a platform for their ambitious ideas and innovative methods. This project led to significant exposure in the press, and the unique fireplace was shortlisted for the Architectural Review Emerging Architecture Awards.
Nearly 10 years later, Ran and Maya purchased, designed and renovated their second home in Stoke Newington. The Scenario House was widely published and shortlisted for several prestigious awards – including the 2018 RIBA London Award.
Your Dalston project
If you’re considering a residential architectural project in Dalston, we’re here to help, whether it’s a renovation, extension or new-build. We’ve created a brief illustrated overview to help you understand each stage of the process, whether you’re planning a home extension, renovation or new-build in Dalston.
Most architecture projects in Dalston require planning permission from Hackney Council. With our successful record securing planning permission on behalf of our clients, we can claim home advantage across Hackney in general and Dalston in particular.
Tip
Discover if your architect has had success steering planning applications through your local council. Visit the “planning applications” section of your council’s website and enter the architect’s name in the search criteria.
Architects Dalston
Architects Dalston
Scenario is an established architecture practice focusing on contemporary residential design. We take on projects of every scale and scope, from home refurbishment, renovation and expansions to new-builds.
Working with Scenario Architecture
Scenario Architecture is a boutique architecture studio focused on high-end residential projects in Dalston and beyond. We tackle domestic projects of every scale and complexity, from interior alterations and refurbishments to full renovations and new-builds, through our bespoke architecture service.
Our friendly, experienced, highly skilled team can take you step-by-step through the challenge of designing your space. We’ll collaborate closely with you from the initial design and planning through tender and construction to the successful completion of your project. On time and on budget.
Scenario is a RIBA Chartered Practice. We comply with the strict criteria of the Royal Institute of Chartered Architects, covering insurance, health and safety and quality-management.
Early adopters of the latest technology, we use innovative 3D design and visualisation tools as a standard on all projects. Our experience shows that real-time visualisations and virtual reality are extremely efficient tools for choosing finishes and fittings, and simulating natural light.
We also use 3D building information modelling (BIM) technology to produce reliable construction information, so all our project data comes from an accurate, coordinated 3D model. Using this cutting-edge technology collaboratively with consultants and contractors is proven to save our clients time and money.
A Chartered Institute of Building case study featuring a Scenario project demonstrates the great benefits of this advanced technology for domestic architecture.
Architects Dalston
In our client's words
Architects Dalston
Great ideas and vision to help with our substantial improvement of a Victorian terrace. In our experience Scenario's method prioritises the final result. That may mean more professional fees or higher quotes from contractors, as they understand the exact requirements.
Architects Dalston
Great, professional service. Good drawings and models and ultimately passed planning at the first attempt with Hackney Council. Would certainly recommend!
Architects Dalston
Scenario Architecture have created an outstanding design and space that was beyond my expectations. The design was through their unique process of understanding the client’s daily scenarios and collaborating with the client to come up with a unique design. The design process is one of the most memorable parts of the process and they also stretched my existing ideas to help create this unique space. A stress free journey throughout the whole process which Scenario were indispensable by giving advice on many difficult design and build decisions.
Architects Dalston
We wanted to renovate our house in a conservation area in central London. Given this involved a complete demolition and new build with an extra floor on top, getting planning approval was always going to be tricky. Scenario did an amazing job on the new house 'envelope' and throughout the planning phase. We couldn't have wished for better from them and having succeeded in gaining planning approval owe them a very big 'thank you'.
Architects Dalston
Scenario were great at thinking imaginatively and coming up with a design for a ground floor extension that was more ambitous than other architects we spoke to. They also helped us find a contractor who was able to complete the project working within timescale and our tight budget. I would recommend for mid to large sized projects with sufficient budget to allow for full utilisation of their creativity.
Further Reading
Dalston is less a defined London territory than it is a neighbourhood of like-minded people. Roughly defined in the west by the A10, the city’s oldest Roman-dug road, it floats between Clapton, Hoxton and Islington. But more than its geographical location, it expresses itself with its liberal, tolerant, international attitude.
The working-class population that first settled here in the 19th-century, rippling out from the Regents Canal, converted farmland into industrial sites and small Victorian cottages. They were joined by immigrants from multiple countries and religions, together building up a modest community outside the confines of the City of London. After a postwar slump, the neighbourhood came alive toward the end of the last century. Artists began settling here, spilling out from Hoxton and Shoreditch, seeking inexpensive post-industrial workspace, artistic freedom and places to exhibit their art. As per the rules of gentrification, young professionals and families followed. They’ve transformed the old warehouses, factories and stables into appealing and spacious homes. And in the brownfields between them, architects have designed experimental contemporary homes, creating housing where none existed while pushing the boundaries of their craft.
Live-work spaces, purpose-built apartment blocks and modern terrace housing have sprung up among the historic brick and contemporary timber constructions, giving the neighbourhood a dynamic and unpredictable character. People of all cultures and brackets live side-by-side, and businesses are popping up to serve them. They combine to make Dalston an area of great potential, for people who seek a multicultural atmosphere and an unconventional lifestyle.
If you’re a fan of heritage housing, look to the streets radiating east off Stoke Newington High Street and Kingsland Road. Streets like Forest Road and Richmond Road, leading to Gayhurst Community School and London Fields, are chock-a-block with tall, broad Victorian family homes and repurposed factories. With the old brick and ironwork maintained, new residents are slowly fixing them up and maximising their potential. Further north, Shacklewell Lane, Sandringham Road and St Marks Rise are attracting new buyers to the grand tree-lined streets. Homes here rise to four storeys, many of them in need of an upgrade. Buyers seeking a fixer-upper, or a tired family home on which to put a personal stamp, would have lots of opportunity here. At the heart of this enclave sits St Marks Dalston, one of the largest neighbourhood churches in the country – larger in area than Southwark Cathedral. Its Gothic rose window and French-inflected tower, built a century ago, dominate the road.
Loft extensions are more of a rule than an exception in Dalston, as are side-return kitchen extensions. Local architects like Scenario are well versed in the expansion and renovation process here, and manoeuvre their designs successfully through the planning and heritage departments. The results are often stripped-back, light-filled versions of the original Victorian architecture, offering vast entertaining spaces and private nooks for growing families.
Advice
View AllFrequently Asked Questions
- As a dynamic practice operating in London’s premium residential market, managing projects remotely and conducting virtual meetings was a very familiar territory for us, long before the pandemic began and ‘working remotely’ became the norm.
- Our clients have very busy lifestyles and may move between several different locations, both within the UK and beyond, during the lifecycle of a typical project.
- To accommodate such client needs and enable us to run their projects smoothly we had all the technology and know-how associated with remote working in place for several years.
- Read our full (Virtual) Process
- Scenario based design – We start each and every project with a meticulous analysis of our client’s vision, requirements and aspirations. We do this by asking our clients to imagine their everyday scenarios living in the completed house and describe their desired interaction with it.
- Uniquely interactive - Our client’s deep involvement in the process does not stop with completion of the brief. Our design meetings are highly interactive, informal and fun.
- Designed to reflect you – Based purely on your lifestyle, aspirations and requirements and free from externally imposed concepts, metaphors and pre-conceptions, a completely fresh and unique design will gradually emerge and it will tell your story not ours.
- Collaborative – We start the conversation with planners early and advise most of our clients to seek pre-planning advice prior to submission of a full planning application. Our experience shows that when properly consulted and liaised with, most planning case officers will be receptive to conduct a professional dialogue, increasing chances of successes.
- Strategic – We tailor a custom planning strategy for each project based on its circumstances such as planning history, local context and specific challenging elements. We sometimes split applications or introduce minor tweaks to the scheme during the consideration period in conversation with the officers to prevent one contentious element from jeopardising approval of the main scheme.
- Professional – Our experience shows that the quality and clarity of the submission in terms of background research, planning history of the property and context, precedent and of course the arguments presented to support the case has a tremendous effect on success rate.
- The decision period clock only starts ticking once the application is validated by the Council, This requires then to check that the forms are completed correctly and that the submission contains all the necessary drawings, statements and reports.
- Although required by law to provide a decision within the statutory eight weeks period, it is not uncommon for councils to miss the deadline of the consideration period, normally only by a few days, sometimes longer.
- In some cases the council may ask us as your agent for an extension of time, this may be requested due to internal reasons or as an acceptable result of a professional discussion that we are conducting with them about certain aspects of the application that they are not sure about.
- Our experience shows that planning officers respond better to projects when they feel consulted and collaborated with. We find that when we truly listen to their often helpful and valid feedback and treat them as consultants for the projects and not representative of an evil enforcing authority, they tend to collaborate well with us and demonstrate increased flexibility.
- Although the council in theory have eight weeks to consider your application, in practice they are constantly overloaded. They will only look at your application in the last few days of the consideration period. If this is the first time that they come across a scheme that they were never consulted about, our chance to secure permission for you in a single attempt is significantly compromised.
- The standard practice is for the council to consider the full planning application as submitted and then issue a yes or no decision. Case officers are not required or even encouraged to enter a discussion with us or accept resubmission of minor changes to the proposed scheme during the consideration period.