A stainless-steel kitchen stands just beyond the planting. Through the open glazed doorway, the worktop is close enough to the garden for the two to share one view; behind it, timber, crockery and a red cooking pot make an unmistakably domestic scene. This is the Coach House in East Dulwich, on the site of a former MOT garage.

The kitchen seen from the courtyard: planting, an open doorway and a working surface occupy the same view. Photograph: Lewis Gregory.

The change is substantial, but the most interesting question is smaller than how to turn a garage into a house. Where will the rooms get their light? On a plot surrounded by other buildings, giving every room a window is only the beginning. What those windows face, and how the rooms meet the outside, will determine much of the home's character.

Architect Rupert Scott of Open Practice Architecture and interior designer Leo Wood of Kinder Design created the house for their own family. Wood describes a division of work in which he concentrated on light and planning, while she developed the materials. Their finished home was reported by Architecture Today in October 2024; this is an established project, not a new completion for 2026.

The building turns around a planted courtyard. Look at the photograph from outside and there are several distinct encounters with it: a tall glazed opening, an upper window, a timber door, the low planting beside the path. The garden is present at the point of arrival and along the edge of the rooms, rather than appearing only at the end of a long interior.

Pale brick and timber enclose the planted courtyard, with glazing along the lower part of the house and annexe. Photograph: Lewis Gregory.

The kitchen's view is close: leaves, brickwork and glimpses through glass. That is enough to give the room a relationship with the garden. Even with the doors closed, the planting would remain in sight; opening them adds a physical connection.

For someone considering a deep extension or an awkward urban plot, that suggests an early design question. Before filling every available corner, ask what each occupied room will look towards. This is our reading of the project, not a prescription for cutting a courtyard into an existing home. The value of an opening depends on the rooms and boundaries around it.

Scott told Architecture Today that a separate light pocket at the rear allowed two bedrooms to receive south-facing light, instead of arranging all the rooms towards the courtyard. It is a consequential adjustment: the plan gives different parts of the house different access to daylight.

The rear lightwell addresses a question the courtyard view cannot answer: how does daylight reach beyond the rooms facing the garden? It is part of the architect's reported solution. No measured daylight results are available in the sources, so the photographs cannot establish year-round brightness.

An aerial photograph published by Open Practice Architecture shows the house among neighbouring buildings and gardens. It establishes the close urban setting, not measured boundaries or room dimensions. Photographer not identified on the source page.

The aerial view makes the surrounding buildings hard to ignore. It also shows why an attractive courtyard photograph is only one part of a design brief. Window height, neighbouring outlooks and the shape of the roof all belong in the conversation. The questions for a designer are about particular rooms at particular times, including privacy, summer heat and ventilation, as well as how bright a photograph looks.

The timber-lined snug provides another expression of the same idea. Its ceiling and walls create a definite interior, while a broad sheet of glazing places the garden directly beside the sofa. Across the planting, the brick face of the main house is visible. The view connects two parts of the home without making their interiors identical.

In the annexe snug, timber surrounds the seating while broad glazing keeps the courtyard and main house in view. Photograph: Lewis Gregory.

I find the position of the sofa more persuasive than any description of seamless indoor-outdoor living. It offers a place to settle beside the garden, within a room still defined by its ceiling beams, floorboards and upholstered seat.

The annexe followed the purchase of a small adjoining plot, and the 2024 report dates its addition to 2023. That detail matters. The finished arrangement grew from a particular opportunity next door; it was not simply a set of decorative changes within an unchanged garage shell.

A former commercial site needs its own feasibility assessment. This English project does not establish that another garage can become a home under the same planning route. GOV.UK advises checking changes of use with the local planning authority. Building-regulations approval is a separate matter, and a project may need both.

Before committing to a similar undertaking, an architect or surveyor needs to establish what can be retained, what structural advice is required, how the site can be accessed and serviced, and which permissions apply. Requirements differ across the UK nations. The published account supplies no verified project price, so there is no responsible budget shortcut to take from these images.

From the snug, the main house appears across the planting. The courtyard has put enough space between the rooms for one part of the home to become the view from another. For a tight urban site, that is an appealing use of ground that might otherwise have been built over.