Sloane Square Townhouse, Chelsea

NGA have been appointed to sensitively rework a Grade II listed townhouse near Sloane Square, located within the Chelsea Conservation Area. The project is currently at the preliminary design stage, with studies exploring how to adapt the house into a contemporary family home while navigating the layered constraints of listed building status and local conservation policy.

A key element of the brief is the potential for a basement extension beneath the garden, which requires a careful negotiation of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s basement policies and heritage guidance.

The house forms part of a historic streetscape, originally open fields belonging to King Henry VIII before becoming a nursery garden and later developed into the Victorian terraces that stand today. The area is steeped in history, with past residents including notable figures such as Karl Marx.

At the heart of the project is a desire to balance the architectural heritage of the building with the requirements of modern family life — a careful integration of contemporary interventions within a protected and historically significant setting.