Bromley Architects
Bromley Architects
Bromley Architects
About us
A South London community with a village feel, Bromley has the best of both worlds when it comes to family living. The pace here is slower than many other Zone 3 communities, and yet the connection to London’s Victoria Station is faster than ever – 20 minutes, if you time it right. Nature parks, sporting fields and as much shopping as Oxford Street make it an attractive base – not to mention the quality of the housing stock. Residential plots are blessed with front and back gardens, off-street parking and mature trees.
Most residential building works across Bromley require permission from Bromley’s borough body. However there exists a great tradition of “don’t move, improve” in the area. Many owners of single-family homes are preserving their distinctive woodwork and window bays while installing new, striking elements that complement the original structure and improve daily life.
Bromley architects are prepared to pay careful attention to local regulations, period details and decades of wear and tear. At Scenario Architecture, we boast a successful relationship with planning departments in all parts of London. Throughout more than 10 years in the business, we’ve developed a reputation for transforming these types of homes with a skilled hand and compassionate eye. As a result, our boutique residential architecture practice has become one of the most respected in the city.
We launched Scenario in 2007 with a unique vision: to marry our passion for heritage architecture with our fresh approach to contemporary design and create striking living spaces. From the start, we put our clients’ wishes at the forefront. Our method of collaboration means every Scenario home is tailor made, highly functional and reflective of the owners – not the architects. Over a decade, we’ve developed a deeper understanding of the ways in which homeowners engage with their space. Our bespoke architecture is speaks directly to the individuals living in it.
In 2018 our landmark project Scenario House, was shortlisted for the prestigious RIBA London Awards. A remodelled Victorian family home in London, it demonstrates our commitment to period properties and the modern lifestyles of Londoners today. Homeowners seeking Bromley architects should look to Scenario House to see our fresh, customised approach to a typical London heritage home.
Your Bromley project
If you are taking on an architecture project in Bromley, Scenario can set you on the right path. We’ve drawn up an illustrated inventory of the planning process to help you prepare – whether you’re planning an extension, renovation or new-build.
With the exception of small conservatories, porches or gardens, building projects in Bromley must be approved by the local council. Our successful record securing planning permission on behalf of our clients will extend to your project.
Tip
Discover if your chosen architect has had success steering planning applications through your local council. Visit the Camden Council website, click on “Planning and Building Control”, go into the search engine for planning applications and type in your agent’s name.
Bromley Architects
Bromley Architects
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
At Scenario Architecture, we tackle domestic projects of every scale and complexity, from interior alterations and refurbishments to full renovations and new-builds. Our boutique studio in London offers a bespoke architecture service and a team of experienced, highly skilled architects.
Scenario is a RIBA Chartered Practice. We comply with the strict health and safety criteria of the country’s professional body.
Our specialists collaborate closely with every client from the initial drawings, detail design and planning through tender and construction to completion – on time and on budget. If you are looking for Wimbledon architects, check out our portfolio of high-end residential projects across London.
We use innovative 3D design technology on all our projects. Our decade in the business has shown us that real-time visualisations and virtual reality are the most efficient tools for seeing a project through, choosing the right fixtures and fittings and simulating natural light. This Chartered Institute of Building case study – featuring a Scenario Architecture project – demonstrates the great benefits of this advanced technology for domestic architecture.
Bromley Architects
In our client's words
Bromley Architects
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.
Bromley Architects
Great, professional service. Good drawings and models and ultimately passed planning at the first attempt with Hackney Council. Would certainly recommend!
Bromley Architects
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.
Bromley Architects
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'.
Bromley Architects
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
Bromley appears at that very point where London yields to the countryside. Anglo Saxon for “a place where broom grows”, it’s been a desirable place to live for decades, both for its physical proximity to London and its aesthetic difference from it. The Thameslink and Southeastern Rail get you into London Victoria in just over 20 minutes, yet the streets are quiet and quaint, and you’re never far from green. The town market draws in shoppers every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Once swallowed up by mid-century developments, the area around it has had a string of makeovers in recent years.
Residential communities started cropping up in Bromley more than a century ago, though much of the housing stock dates back to the postwar period – broad mock Tudors with bay windows and garages, built for large families. The Chislehurst area is probably the most aspirational – many century-old homes here have views to the village green or church. Bromley’s old town, also called Bromley North Village, teems with Victorian terraces The town centre is packed with conveniences, from Edwardian pubs to live performance theatres to a covered shopping mall with an Apple Store. Yet just outside the M25 motorway is a world of open spaces, hobby farms and medieval town centres with historic belfries and Norman lore.
Most home-reconfigurations in the Bromley area will be straightforward, and young families have begun a tradition of moving in and scooping out old interiors in favour of glass and steel extensions. Getting more for your money here than in London proper, you’ll have more change to spare to extend a kitchen or basement, add a modern conservatory or expand the upper floors. And with houses here already wider than their Central London counterparts, you’ll have an enviable amount of space to live in.
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.