House Renovation
About us
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.
Our dynamic London-based studio launched in 2007 with a vision to take Britain’s elegant period architecture into the 21st century, using technological skill, modern, durable elements and big ideas. We match each scenario to the client, tailoring spaces according to their long-term needs.
Your House Renovation project
Working closely with our clients, we always aim to maximise space without sacrificing period charm. The results have helped make Britain’s most treasured architecture functional, liveable and covetable in the long term.
Our landmark project Scenario House is a contemporary, light-filled home adapted from a Victorian terrace in East London. It has been shortlisted for several architecture prizes, including the prestigious RIBA London Award.
We use the latest 3D design and visualisation technology to streamline our process. Our building information modelling technology (BIM) produces reliable construction information and accurate data to save clients time and money. This Chartered Institute of Building case study, featuring one of our flagship projects, highlights the benefits of using advanced technology for modern house design.
A RIBA Chartered Practice, Scenario complies with essential criteria covering insurance, health and safety and quality-management systems.
Tip
To discover whether or not your architect has had success steering planning applications through your local council, visit the “planning applications” page of your local council’s website and enter the architect’s name in the search criteria.
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
Working closely with our clients, we always aim to maximise space without sacrificing period charm. The results have helped make Britain’s most treasured architecture functional, liveable and covetable in the long term.
Our landmark project Scenario House is a contemporary, light-filled home adapted from a Victorian terrace in East London. It has been shortlisted for several architecture prizes, including the prestigious RIBA London Award.
We use the latest 3D design and visualisation technology to streamline our process. Our building information modelling technology (BIM) produces reliable construction information and accurate data to save clients time and money. This Chartered Institute of Building case study, featuring one of our flagship projects, highlights the benefits of using advanced technology for modern house design.
A RIBA Chartered Practice, Scenario complies with essential criteria covering insurance, health and safety and quality-management systems.
House Renovation
In our client's words
House Renovation
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.
House Renovation
Great, professional service. Good drawings and models and ultimately passed planning at the first attempt with Hackney Council. Would certainly recommend!
House Renovation
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.
House Renovation
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'.
House Renovation
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
We’ve all been guilty of visiting a neighbour’s house and coveting their spacious, light-filled side-return kitchen or their airy loft. Or else we’ve pored over interiors magazines and design sites for creative transformations in fabulous colour palettes. If moving house isn’t an option for creating your dream home, a house renovation is the way to go. However, major home improvements can be a daunting, if exciting, prospect. Seeing and coveting someone else’s dream space is one thing; actually achieving it is a whole other ballgame. This is where an architect can be worth their weight in gold for helping you visualise your plans and turn them into a satisfying reality.
A house renovation can be as small or large as you want it to be, from transforming a powder room or replacing small windows with large glass doors to an entire home overhaul. In 2010, the independent discussion forum New London Architecture founded the ‘Don’t Move, Improve’ awards to celebrate the creative and ingenious solutions that Londoners were using to improve their homes. Over the past ten years, these pioneering awards have continued to shine a light on innovative home renovation projects, which have included homes at the top of water towers and on the narrowest of plots, as well as sunken Japanese-style baths, floating gardens and secret sliding staircases.
These homes demand more from every space, pay greater attention to the specific needs of the homeowners and take ever more daring risks in terms of materials and aesthetics while still being tailored to ever-increasing constraints and smaller budgets.
It’s no surprise, then, to find that Scenario has been nominated twice for these awards.
The experienced team at Scenario can help you conceive your own bespoke house renovation or refurbishment and guide you through the many options available to you, as well as the various considerations that need to be taken into account to ensure you get a house that’s functional and adaptable, but also offers maximum pleasure and a touch of wow-factor. For house renovation and refurbishment inspiration, have a look through design and interiors magazines, and online at sites like Pinterest, Houzz and Instagram, where you can see the endless possibilities.
Frequently 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.