A Fitzrovia kitchen project rarely begins with a garden; it begins with where the waste can go. In a flat the new sink, dishwasher and washing machine have to reach the building's soil stack with a continuous, code-compliant fall, and the stack is fixed in position — usually in a riser, a rear closet wing or an original service void. Move the kitchen too far from it and the waste run either loses its gradient or has to be pumped, which brings noise, maintenance and a point of failure. We survey the existing drainage and riser first and let the reachable fall define how far the kitchen can honestly travel, rather than drawing a plan the pipework cannot serve.
Extract is the second constraint that decides these schemes, and in a mixed-use building it is the one owners least expect. A relocated kitchen needs a mechanical extract route to the outside, and in a building with a restaurant, cafe or commercial kitchen below, that route must not conflict with the commercial extract flue that already rises through the structure. Shared risers get congested, and a domestic duct competing with a heavily used catering flue is a recipe for odour transfer and refused freeholder consent. We map the existing flues and risers, establish where a compliant domestic extract can terminate, and design the ductwork around the commercial system rather than into a clash with it.
Almost every flat kitchen here sits over another home or a commercial use, so the floor is a structural and acoustic problem as much as a finish. Relocating a kitchen moves the point loads, the appliance vibration and the impact noise to a new part of the floor plate, and the leaseholder below has a reasonable expectation of quiet. We design an acoustic floor build-up — resilient layers, isolation under appliances and careful pipe boxing — to control airborne and impact sound to the flat or restaurant beneath, because the freeholder and managing agent will look for it, and because it is often a condition of the Licence to Alter before work can start.
The Licence to Alter is the document that governs whether the project happens at all. A leasehold flat cannot be structurally or significantly altered without the freeholder's written consent, and moving a kitchen — new drainage, altered layout, possibly a removed non-structural partition or a new opening — falls squarely within it. The managing agent will want drawings, a method statement and often a structural engineer's input and evidence of the acoustic and drainage strategy before licensing the works. We prepare that package to the standard a freeholder's surveyor expects, so consent is granted on the design rather than stalled by missing information, and we sequence it alongside any building-control route.
Where a Georgian or Victorian townhouse survives in single-family use, the kitchen question changes shape. There is rarely a suburban side-return to infill, so the realistic move is a constrained rear or lower-ground addition on a plot with almost no spare ground, a party wall frequently shared with a commercial neighbour, and conservation control over the rear elevation. The lower-ground level brings its own issues — floor levels, damp and waterproofing, light to a deep plan and headroom under the original structure. We scope these tightly and keep the page honest: a townhouse rear kitchen here is a careful, boundary-hemmed infill, deliberately distinct from the in-flat relocation and from a general house extension.
Building regulations apply to a kitchen relocation even where planning does not. Drainage falls and connections, ventilation and extract rates, electrical work, fire separation between the flat and its neighbours, structural alterations where a partition or opening changes, and any new waterproofing all fall within building control, and the compliance is demonstrated through a proper drawing package rather than assumed on site. In a listed building the internal consent regime runs in parallel, and in a mixed-use building the fire separation between residential and commercial uses is scrutinised closely. We coordinate the planning position, the Licence to Alter and the building-regulations submission so the kitchen is buildable, lawful and signed off, not just drawn.
