Playroom Design
Playroom Design
Playroom Design
About us
Designing an elegant home that speaks to multiple generations is not beyond the realm of possibility. While pandering to small children in your design can quickly look outdated, a skilful hand can integrate features like a climbing wall leading to a secret reading nook, a treehouse bed, a slide or swing without slipping into childish gimmickry. When designing a room for a unique purpose, we apply careful consideration to functionality and fold it seamlessly into the larger scheme.
We launched Scenario with a vision to take Britain’s elegant Georgian houses, Victorian terraces and midcentury homes into the 21st century, using big ideas, technological skill and modern, durable elements. We match each scenario to the client and tailor spaces according to need. Designing a child’s playroom offers great scope for imagination, unusual materials, colour and patterns, but it shouldn’t be all about child’s play. Whether a small children’s corner or an entire wing, this special space should please everyone, whatever the age.
Expanding and improving a home can be a daunting but exciting prospect. Since 2007, Scenario has subscribed to the ‘Don’t Move, Improve’ ideology, a mindset that is especially poignant during periods of stretched affordability. Working closely with our clients, we 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 is Scenario House, a contemporary, light-filled home adapted from a Victorian terrace in East London. Innovative and tailored to the owners’ requirements, it was shortlisted for several architecture prizes, including the prestigious RIBA London Award.
Your Playroom Design project
Most house extension projects in London require planning permission from the local council. With our successful record securing planning permission on behalf of our clients, we can claim home advantage across London.
If you are planning to hire an architect for your playroom design, read our brief illustrated overview. It will help you understand the various stages of the design process.
Most architectural projects require planning permission from the local council, although a playroom may not. Consider asking an architecture firm to help. Our studio has had great success securing planning permission on behalf of our clients.
Tip
Discover if your chosen architect has had success steering planning applications through your local council. Visit the council website, click on “Planning and Building Control”, go into the search engine for planning applications and type in your agent’s name.
Playroom Design
Playroom Design
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
A boutique studio of skilled architects focusing on contemporary residential design, Scenario takes on projects of every scale and scope, from renovations and expansions to new-build houses.
We collaborate with our clients from initial concept right through to construction and final completion, and we aim to finish all projects on time and on budget.
Using the latest 3D design and visualisation technology to streamline the process, our building information modelling technology (BIM) produces reliable construction information and accurate data to save time and money. A 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.
Playroom Design
In our client's words
Playroom Design
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.
Playroom Design
Great, professional service. Good drawings and models and ultimately passed planning at the first attempt with Hackney Council. Would certainly recommend!
Playroom Design
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.
Playroom Design
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'.
Playroom Design
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
Contemporary architecture isn’t traditionally associated with fun. Steel, glass, concrete and sleek natural woods, all choreographed into streamlined frames doesn’t play to children. Spending on architecture for little, undiscerning people may seem like money wasted. Yet conceived wisely and creatively, it can be fun for the whole family and keep a house working like a well-oiled machine for generations.
Scenario founders Ran Ankory and Maya Carni renovated a two-bedroom, upper-floor flat in East London before the arrival of their two sons and gradually felt the need for more dedicated space. When they acquired a larger Victorian terrace house in the same area, they imagined all sorts of open-plan, light-filled, imaginative solutions, including a unique play area. With the children’s input, they devised a “secret” space accessed by a climbing wall. The only way down was via a fireman’s pole. The boys have grown with the space and the space has adapted to them.
Scenario can help you to design your own bespoke playroom and guide you through the many options available. We consider all the elements of playroom design that bring fun and function to a home without the crude additions that can bring down a scheme. Our spaces are adaptable, able to grow with your children as their needs and desires change.
For ideas that appeal to all generations, explore our website flip through interiors magazines and check out online resources like Pinterest, Houzz and Instagram. Playroom designs run the gamut, from climbing walls and built-in floating beds to treehouse nooks with ladders and rooms kitted out with swings, poles or slides. They’re not for everyone, which is why collaborating with an architect will likely net pleasingly surprising results. Most importantly, though: have fun.
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.