Wimbledon Architects
About us
Wimbledon’s heritage housing stock, vast green spaces and name recognition combine to make it one of the most desirable neighbourhoods in South West London. Quiet streets crossed with quiet residential lanes enjoy sweeping views across the city. Residential plots are blessed with front and back gardens, off-street parking and mature trees.
Expanding or improving a home in this neighbourhood requires Wimbledon architects prepared to pay careful attention to local regulations, period details and decades of wear and tear. Scenario Architecture has a long and successful relationship with planning departments across London. This experience, along with our reputation transforming historic London homes with a compassionate eye, has made our boutique residential architecture practice one of the most coveted in the city.
Established by two young graduates of the Architecture Association in 2007, Scenario began with a unique vision. We wanted to marry our passion for heritage architecture with our fresh approach to contemporary design to create striking living spaces that speak to their inhabitants. From the very start, we have collaborated with our clients, putting their ambitions and their unique lifestyles at the forefront of our designs. Our clients’ needs are the main drivers of our architecture.
A highly functional home is the product of a deep understanding of each client. Scenario’s tailor-made homes tell a story about each owner – not about the architects.
Our landmark project Scenario House, shortlisted for the RIBA London Awards in 2018, demonstrates why Scenario is considered one of the top practices working in London. It is a fine example of our commitment to period properties and the modern need of Londoners today. Homeowners seeking Wimbledon architects should examine its fresh, customised approach to a typical London heritage home.
Over a decade, we’ve refined and perfected our methods and developed a deeper understanding of the ways in which homeowners engage with their space. Our bespoke homes and home expansions are reflections of the individuals living in them – not the architects themselves.
Projects
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Wimbledon Architects
Wimbledon Architects
Wimbledon Architects
Your Wimbledon project
Researching an architecture project in Wimbledon? We can help put you on the right path. We’ve drawn up an illustrated synopsis of the process to help you understand what it entails, whether you’re planning to extend your home, renovate or build a new home entirely.
Most architectural undertakings in Wimbledon must be approved by Merton Council’s Planning and Buildings department. With our successful record securing planning permission on behalf of our clients, we will help you navigate that process, working collaboratively with Merton officials to see your application through.
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.
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.
Wimbledon Architects
In our client's words
Wimbledon 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.
Wimbledon Architects
Great, professional service. Good drawings and models and ultimately passed planning at the first attempt with Hackney Council. Would certainly recommend!
Wimbledon 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.
Wimbledon 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'.
Wimbledon 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
Not everybody sees past Wimbledon’s illustrious sporting history to discover the neighbourhood itself – based in Wimbledon since 1877, the Wimbledon Tennis Championship dominates public perception of the area. But Wimbledon has its own lore.
Inhabited by Britons since an Iron Age hill fort was established here, the community centres on a medieval village. Wimbedounyng, as it was called then, crops up in writings dating back a thousand years. A manor in the village provided a home to Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and Catherine Parr, the last wife of Henry VIII, and even fell into the hands of Elizabeth I.
Travellers passing through in the 18th century stopped at the Dog and Fox inn, east of today’s Wimbledon Common. The pub and guesthouse still exist in the original building with a traditional wood-panelled interior. Soon enough Wimbledon’s Broadway got its own railway station and a neighbourhood of grand single-family Victorian homes blossomed around it. Today the district includes one of London’s largest tracts of public land, Wimbledon Common. That green space alone lends Wimbledon desirability and pushes house prices high. Wimbledon Common, the green space just a few streets to the east, was once the property of the Duke of Somerset.
Wimbledon grew a great deal during the Victorian building boom. Along with housing, the neighbourhood got a trio of glorious Gothic churches. Of course the tennis is still a huge draw to the community. The sport began to gain traction in Wimbledon after croquet diminished in popularity and lawn tennis took hold. King George V opened the current complex of courts in 1922.
For 14 days every July, the world comes to Wimbledon – or so it seems – to bask in the glory of the latest tennis champions. But throughout the year it is an impressive place to live, among genteel red-brick houses with stained-glass windows, fashionable shops and cafes and easy transport to Central London.
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.