RX Architects Wraps a Sussex Dining Room in Glass to Meet the Garden

RX Architects has returned to Druim, a timber clad home it completed in 2020 on the Rye Nature Reserve in East Sussex, to add a garden facing extension that wraps a new dining space in full height glazing, as first reported by Dezeen. The practice used the same contractor and materials as the original build to keep the addition, known as the Druim Extension, in step with the existing house.

The extension centres on an expanded dining area organised around a solid wood table, a large skylight and a log burner, connected to the existing kitchen to the east. Full height glazing and sliding doors open the room onto a patio and the rear garden, while a glazed corner houses a window seat shaded by deep soffits clad in narrow timber planks that continue inside to line the ceiling.

Studio director Rob Pollard said the original 2020 project had focused on the home's sea views and its outlook over the nature reserve, leaving the more private rear garden underused. "The main opportunity was to enhance the private rear gardens," he told Dezeen, adding that budget limitations at the time had made the connection harder to build into the original structure.

Beyond the dining room, the extension prompted a reorganisation of the existing house around a new boot room and entrance hall, giving direct access to a staircase that previously opened straight off the living room. Turning the stair also shifted the living room's outlook toward the sea and nature reserve, while a glazed corridor to the west now shelters the garden from coastal winds without blocking the view through it.

Druim was originally built in 2020 from a half built structure RX Architects inherited on the site, and sits alongside other coastal projects by the practice, including the concrete, pink toned Seabreeze house elsewhere in East Sussex. Photography for the extension is by Richard Chivers, and more of the practice's work is available through RX Architects.