Our extension and refurbishment of our favourite city centre pub. The ‘little’ Grapes sits in the Rodney Street ‘Cathedral' conservation area of Liverpool.
We imagined the extension as a 'lean to’, as a ‘book end’ to the old terrace that once extended down Roscoe street. The recent ‘monster scale’ of the city college building behind ruled out any attempt at mediation to the context so we just turned our back.
In the tradition of public houses, externally it had to be ornate so we decorated it with a Dutch style gable with a bulls eye window and stepped glazed bricks to the sill and head to the new ground floor windows.
Originally the Grapes was three separate small terraced buildings which gives the pub its quality of small rooms which create intimate drinking areas. We liked the existing small room characteristic and resisted any urge towards ‘open plan-ism’ and added our extension as just another little room.
The External space is crucial to the success of a pub in this location so we took the rear yard and relocated it on the first floor and partly covered it to the street to provide a smoking ‘loggia’.