Not every architectural project begins with an empty site and an exciting brief. Sometimes it begins with a catastrophe.
When a home is badly damaged by fire the impact extends far beyond the building itself. Sadly this is not a process that is new to Johnson Design Partnership, having supported clients in the past.
One such project was a substantial family home in Shropshire where the blaze was so severe that the house and its adjoining large conservatory was effectively a total loss. You can see some photos of the damage below. The suspected source of the fire was the chimney flue serving a log burner, though the exact cause needed careful consideration. What was beyond doubt was the scale of the consequences.
On top of the emotional shock, the family faced urgent practicalities. This meant dealing with insurers, loss adjusters, questions over what could be salvaged, what should be written off and, ultimately, what could take its place. For many months, home became a caravan positioned outside the remains of the building.
Photo of a Fire Damaged Shropshire home Johnson Design Partnership Ltd. helped restore.
What happens when a house is effectively written off?
Before considering what a new house might look like, we need to understand what remains. The insurer and loss adjuster will usually assess the claim on the basis of reinstatement. We can help guide the process to establish:
These questions require detailed and sometimes complex dialogue between the owners, JDP Architects, the insurers and their loss adjusters. The challenge is to establish a common understanding of what happened, what is genuinely lost and what an appropriate replacement should be.
As your architect, we can advise you on the salvage and rebuilding options, work with other specialists such as structural engineers and surveyors as required to prepare designs and coordinate information for planning, building regulations and construction.
While helping you to navigate the practical realities of fire damage, insurance provisions, reinstatement and reclamation, we will keep at the forefront of our minds the fact that your family is waiting for a permanent home
Photo taken from a Fire Damaged home our Shropshire Architects helped restore.
Catastrophic fire damage creates an unusual architectural challenge.
The objective isn’t necessarily to recreate yesterday. It’s an opportunity for reinvention and the chance to ask:
If we have to rebuild, what should this house become?
In this project JDP worked closely with the clients and the insurers to consider this and developed the design for a completely new home. An otherwise devastating event became an opportunity to rethink the building for the future. The result: a specially designed new house shaped around the owners and the way they wanted to live. And there was one particularly important detail – the new home would once again have a log burner. This time, however, its installation and flue formed part of a carefully considered, fully compliant design.
Photo of the installation of the replacement log burner
Good architecture isn’t only about how a building looks. It’s about understanding how and why buildings fail, how they can be recovered and how thoughtful design can reduce the possibility of history repeating itself.
Fire damage, Complete loss, Insurance negotiations, Loss adjusters, Reclamation, Reinstatement, Redesign, Rebuilding.
These are not necessarily the words people associate with an architect. When the unexpected happens, an experienced architect can become an important link between client, insurer, loss adjuster and construction team. From a difficult situation your architect can help find a clear route forward. For the owners of this particular house, that journey began with the remains of a devastating fire. It ended with a completely new home rising from them.
Photo of the rebuilt Shropshire home taking shape
Contact us to learn more about how we can support your project
