Yes, it is official, I have come up with a name for this project. All will become clear in the coming weeks.

The steel superstructure is all in place and the ground floor concrete slab is about to go down. The job is really motoring along now thanks to the hard work put in by the team. We were originally due to retain the existing ground floor level, but a canny suggestion from the Contractor (and an affordable offer for the variation to the works) meant we will dramatically improve the ground floor layout, not only be increasing the ceiling height, but increasing the amount of daylight passing into the building.

Some bloke called Johannes..?

I didn't have a Milkmaid on hand to stand in the shot, but I hope you get the reference.

Two is Better than One

The pre-cast concrete slabs for the first floor spanned to different points across the house. This has required us to add two columns annoyingly close to one another (see left of picture) so as to support the beams onto which the slabs now span.

Ready for some meat to go on these bones.

Here you can see the reinforcement bars for the ground floor slab being set out and spot welded into a grid formation, in preparation for the concrete slab going down later this week. The more Hawk-eyed among you will notice the manhole in the centre of the plan. Unfortunately we are building over the shared drain that serves the whole row of terraces, so an access hatch needs to be retained. An excellent floor tiler and a well-placed sofa will get around this problem for the client.

Connection Detail above Rear Door

Steel along rear elevation of the extension is galvanised to protect against corrosion. This is due to the slim wall build-ups we have developed with the engineers, as well as the plate detail which we will use to top-fix the new door system.

As mentioned above, the lowering of the ground floor level will allow us to maximise the amount of light that can permeate into the building. The challenge with rear extensions we find, is managing the design to protect the light levels as the building becomes deeper. You will see the techniques we are using to mitigate this, as The Glass House develops.

More updates from the Glass House coming soon.