/4 min read/Updated
Before and After: What an A&A Can Actually Fix
In short
A straight list of what an A&A can and cannot change, and where URA draws the line. It can fix daylight, circulation, the kitchen's relationship to the garden and the absence of a lift, and cutting a courtyard into a deep plan is the highest-value move available. It cannot fix floor-to-floor heights, the structural grid or the orientation of the plot. And past URA's three fifty-per-cent tests — floor area added, external walls replaced, structure changed — or with an extra storey or a change of house type, the project is lodged as a reconstruction and assessed as a new house.
In this article
Topics
- Alterations & Additions
- Planning
What moves
Non-structural walls, most openings, service routes, and in many cases one structural bay. Within that, an A&A can change how a house lives more than people expect.
- Daylight. Cutting a courtyard or a light well into the middle of a deep plan is the single highest-value move available on a badly lit house.
- Circulation. A stair moved, a corridor removed, a front door turned to face the garden instead of the car porch.
- The kitchen and the garden. Most older houses put the kitchen at the back and service it from a yard; opening it to the garden changes how the whole ground floor is used.
- A lift. Where a void exists or can be made, it is usually the most valuable addition there is. Adding a Lift to a Landed Home covers what it takes.
What does not
Floor-to-floor heights. The structural grid, mostly. The orientation of the plot. These are the three that decide whether an A&A or a rebuild is the right answer.
A house built with low floors will keep them, because raising a floor means rebuilding the structure under it. A grid that puts a column in the middle of the room you want cannot be wished away. And no amount of glazing turns a west-facing living room into a north-facing one.
Where URA draws the line
There is a legal edge to an A&A as well as a practical one. URA's guidelines for landed housing allow works as an addition and alteration only while they stay within half of the existing, approved house on three measures. Past any of them, the proposal is lodged as a new erection or reconstruction instead.
| URA's test | Stays an A&A when |
|---|---|
| Floor area added | no more than 50% of the existing approved gross floor area |
| External walls removed and replaced | no more than 50% of the existing approved external walls |
| Structural changes — new or replaced columns and beams, rebuilt slabs | no more than 50% of the existing approved floor area |
| Roof replaced | allowed, so long as it adds no storey |
| Attic added | allowed, so long as the floor area stays within the 50% |
Two things make it a reconstruction whatever the percentages say: adding a storey, including a new roof that creates one, and changing the house type — a semi-detached house rebuilt as a bungalow, for example.
So can you move a column?
Usually, one or two. Moving a column is a structural change, and it counts toward the third test, but a single bay reworked to open a living room is a small share of a house. What crosses the line is moving the grid: a brief that needs most of the structure replaced to get the plan it wants has stopped being an A&A, in URA's eyes and in practice.
That matters because a reconstruction is assessed as a new house. An A&A works with the house as it was approved, which on an older property can include things a new house would not be given. A reconstruction is lodged against today's guidelines, with a longer approval track, and the programme moves from an A&A's fifteen to twenty-one months to a reconstruction's eighteen to twenty-four. URA still asks something of an A&A, too: on a house whose front setback is short of today's rule, at least 2.4 metres has to be kept.
The honest advice is to find out which side of the line a brief sits on before anyone draws it. Rebuild or A&A? How to Decide sets out how that decision is made, and Setbacks and Envelope Control, Explained covers the rules a new house is drawn to.
The honest before and after
An honest before and after shows the before image beside the after, from the same place, in the same light. A transformation that cannot survive that comparison is not a transformation. The ones that do survive it are nearly always the ones that worked with the three things that do not move, rather than against them.
Key takeaways
- Daylight, circulation, kitchen-to-garden and lift provision are all fixable.
- Floor heights, the structural grid and orientation are not.
- Past half the floor area, half the external walls or half the structure, URA treats it as a reconstruction.
- An extra storey, or a change of house type, is a reconstruction at any size.
- Know which side of the line the brief sits on before anyone draws it.
First published in the KAPA Journal, written with KAPA Design Collective, the practice that designs and builds our residences.
Published by TMB Development at tmbdevelopment.com/journal/before-and-after-what-an-a-and-a-can-fix. Quoting a passage with a link back is welcome; republishing it is not — see the terms.
