A Horseshoe-Shaped House That Turned Its Back on Itself

Apple Orchard was a house with an interesting problem. Its plan was horseshoe-shaped, a generous C-form that enclosed a courtyard garden at its centre, but instead of embracing that potential, the house largely ignored it. The rooms felt disconnected from one another and from the garden. Flow through the house was awkward. There was no clear heart to the home, no space that drew the family together or made the most of the sheltered outdoor space at the building's core.
The garden, sitting right at the centre of the house, enclosed on three sides, was rarely used. The connection between inside and outside simply wasn't there.
The brief was to fix the flow, create a proper social heart to the home, and bring the outdoors in. The solution, when it emerged, was obvious in retrospect: fill the gap.

A Three-Metre Glass Infill at the Centre of Everything

Simon Mack Architecture's response was to place a new kitchen extension directly into the open centre of the C, the one space the existing house had left empty. A three-metre high glass-fronted infill extension, sitting at the junction of the two wings, transformed the awkward horseshoe into a connected, flowing whole.
The new kitchen occupies this glazed pavilion at the heart of the plan. Full-height glazing on the garden-facing elevation means the courtyard garden is now present in the room at all times, visible from the kitchen, easy to step out into, and genuinely inviting in a way it never was before. The 3-metre ceiling height gives the space a generosity and uplift that a conventional single storey extension could not have achieved; light pours in from above as well as through the glass front, reaching not just the new kitchen but the existing spaces that connect to it on either side.
The exterior is calm and composed: white render, grey window frames and a slate roof that sits quietly within the existing character of the house whilst giving the new addition a clean, confident identity of its own. The modernist detailing, honest, unfussy and well-proportioned, suits both the architecture and the garden setting.

The Kitchen the House Always Needed

The kitchen at Apple Orchard is now exactly what a kitchen should be: the heart of the home. Natural light fills the space throughout the day. The room flows easily into the rest of the downstairs, connecting the wings of the house in a way that makes the whole plan feel logical and generous for the first time. The 3-metre ceiling height makes it a genuinely uplifting space, one that is equally well suited to relaxed cooking on a weekday evening, lazy weekend breakfasts and larger gatherings.
The garden, previously neglected and rarely visited, has become a natural extension of the kitchen. The glazed wall makes stepping outside instinctive and the clients find themselves using it throughout the year in a way they simply did not before.
This is a project that demonstrates how a single, well-placed intervention, modest in footprint but precise in its thinking, can unlock the full potential of a house that was always almost right.