Don't Move, Improve! Design Surgeries in London: get free home renovation advice from architects, surveyors and interior designers this weekend
Home renovators can get free advice from the professionals this weekend as the celebrated architects behind the winning projects featured in this year's Don't Move, Improve! awards take part in a day of design surgeries and a packed programme of talks.
Whether you're considering a sustainable renovation, want to discuss budget constraints or have more technical questions, the experts will be on hand to help.
You can bring information, drawings and project ideas to bookable one-to-one appointments with surveyors, engineers, party wall consultants and interior designers at the event on Saturday 2 March in Bloomsbury. Book the 25-minute consultations here.
A series of 45-minute talks will tackle subjects such as 'How to extend your home' — featuring valuable tips on how to get started and how to extend on a budget — as well as 'Think like an architect', which has a focus on creative use of space as well as designing for tight urban sites.
The host of the annual Don't Move, Improve! awards, New London Architecture is also organising child-friendly walking tours of the local area, with interactive workshops in which children are encouraged to imagine themselves as architects and design their own homes.
There's still availability for all talks and one-to-one appointments, although booking is advised.
If you miss out this time, the next Don't Move, Improve! design surgeries are scheduled to take place on Saturday 18 May and Saturday 7 September.
The details
- When: Saturday 2 March, from 10am – 4pm
- Where: New London Architecture Galleries, The Building Centre, 26 Store Street, Fitzrovia, WC1E 7BT
- Cost: free (voluntary donations to Article 25 charity)
Don't Move, Improve! awards
The annual Don't Move, Improve! awards highlight the most ingenious home extensions in a city where every inch of space must work harder than ever to respond to demands for contemporary, flexible homes.
More than 200 entries featuring a range of home renovations and garden room extensions were whittled in November 2018 to a shortlist of 37 London projects.
A once-ruined and abandoned chapel was named London's best renovation project earlier this year after an ambitious transformation saw the dilapidated building turned into a dramatic new family home.
With its vaulted geometric ceiling and mezzanine level housed in a 'tent' roof, the ecclesiastical home won first prize at the Don't Move, Improve! awards on 22 January.
Winning architects involved in the talks at NLA on Saturday include Archmongers LLP who won second prize for Stego in Southwark, a refurbishment and extension of a 1980s end-of-terrace house that saw the main home connected to a garage-turned-bedroom by a single-storey courtyard extension.
The winners of the 'most innovative' prize, Arboreal Architecture, who won for their loft library conversion in Walthamstow, will also be talking about 'thinking inside the box: reuse and retrofit' in the afternoon session.