Sleek and simple solution

Emma Owrid hates building work. But after two years of living with the galley kitchen and dingy dining room of their three-storey, four-bedroom Wandsworth home, she and husband John knew they must bite the bullet.

The couple bought the Victorian semi-detached house in 1998 for £390,000, and one of its features is a delightful secluded garden, ideal for entertaining and as a play area for their two children, Jessica, nine, and Oliver, seven.

However, a further disadvantage of the downstairs layout was the poky back living-room bay window, which obscured the view of the garden. The Owrids called in local architect Tom Pike to create a single 400sq ft space out of their hotchpotch of rooms. Three walls came down, the living area was extended into the side alley, a structural glass roof was installed over the added space and the back wall was replaced with floor-to-ceiling, Japanesestyle, aluminium-framed glass doors.

The result is an intimate relationship between interior and exterior. The area to the rear of the kitchen now has a spectacular view of the garden and the glass roof reveals trees, sky and the occasional rainbow.

Every element of the design works to create maximum visual interest. The new side wall is relieved with glass bricks and a horizontally barred glass door, in continuity with the roof. The curve of the breakfast bar echoes the round steel column that helps support the whole structure and these curves are reiterated in the book shelves opposite, which conceal a vast storage cupboard and downstairs lavatory. Living, dining and cooking spaces are clearly defined, yet fluidly related.

The stunning scheme won Pike a nomination this year for the Architect's Journal's Small Projects Award.

THE CLIENTS

Emma, 40, is a financial analyst, John, 42, is an advertising director: "He's got more vision," she says. "I'm the financial controller." Pike's office was at the end of their road. "We were talking and talking about getting the work done, so one day I went in." She liked Pike immediately, enough not to bother shopping around, although she was careful to check out other projects he'd done.

The three started planning the scheme in June 2000; Emma, however, was ambivalent: "It was a lot of money and I thought the economy was going into recession. And I didn't want the disruption either, I thought it was going to be hell."

But in March 2001 the builders arrived, "and I knew there was no getting out of it." The design evolved with everyone contributing. John suggested the Japanese doors and the new wall's glass detail; Emma added the shelving and chose the kitchen's vibrant blue. "There was no difference of opinion. It was great, it just worked," she says. Pike's striking glass roof shocked the couple when they first saw it. "Tom always called it a flat glass roof, and we thought we'd have a little bit of glass, not the big struts. But actually we love it."

And, although cooking in the dust-filled temporary cellar kitchen (installed as part of the project) was just as horrendous as she'd imagined, she's full of praise for Pike's builder, Andy Brackstone, and his kitchen builder, Frank Tickle.