We were initially commissioned to undertake a detailed historic appraisal of both properties and then appointed to enhance the museum’s operational and visitor attraction performance. Our conservation management plan provided a framework for the conservation and refurbishment of Dickens’s Victorian interiors, the repair of the fragile historic building fabric, and the contemporary conversion and extension of No 49.

The contemporary steel-framed timber clad extension was designed and built to accommodate an existing café, new lift and additional facilities with minimum disturbance. Adopting a contemporary approach, it was designed to be visually distinct from the existing rear brickwork facades and successfully creates a structurally reversible, modern intervention.