Remodelling and extending a detached dwelling in Docklands, East London: foundation challenges

This article discusses a residential project involving the extensive remodelling and extension of an existing property to create a larger, more spacious and functional home for a young family. The original property, a detached house, featured a two-storey central structure with single-storey wings on either side. The project proposals included adding an additional storey to the central section and each wing, expanding the footprint of the side wings, and incorporating internal alterations involving a steel frame to create a larger, open-plan living space. While such alterations and extensions are common in modern domestic properties, the discovery that the house was supported on pile and ground-beam foundations presented unexpected challenges in justifying the proposed changes. Retrieving archive information on the existing foundations was crucial to justifying the increased loads from the new extensions. Additionally, a series of site investigations was necessary to validate the archive information. The article explains how this discovery influenced the choice of building materials for the new extensions, the design strategies to avoid new foundations for the side-wing extensions, and the detailing of a new steel stability frame for the project.