HOUSES EXTENSIONS. Creating new open spaces

When much of our existing housing stock was built, lifestyles were very different. This means that a large proportion of a contemporary architect's work is about adapting these older buildings, rather than building afresh. The challenge for today's architects is thus to adapt our old buildings to our new ways of living, whilst not destroying what we like about them. This often means adding more space to the back, the roof or the side, or even sometimes underneath, whilst retaining the original building'front s as part of the streetscape.