The young professional clients of this central Soho shell space wanted us to make a make a spacious flat for entertaining out of a single room, ten meters by five.
A thin strip was partitioned off one side with sandblasted glass, to provide an entrance lobby, a shower room and a walk in wardrobe, above which is a double sleeping recess. A stainless steel faced kitchen was formed at one end of the room and a mirror clad study at the other to increase the apparent length of the space.
The translucent wall between the service strip and living area gives a mysterious feeling of space while the adjacent wall with windows provides access to the planted terrace and enables light to fill the room.
This total refurbishment and extension of a Victorian cottage was designed to maximise the sale value of the previously dilapidated property. Work included filling in the side return. This new addition features a long uninterrupted double glazed glass roof and underfloor heating.
As the project was completed it achieved the highest sale price per sq meter in the area and is now enjoyed as a family home
Most of the structural work on this house centred on the basement. It was a dingy space, carved up into several rooms. By lowering the garden to the internal floor level and opening up the space, a light airy room was created with a conservatory as a buffer space between the house and the garden. The terrace is now a useable, year round addition.
The conservatory, made of structural glazing, including the spine beam, is fabricated from Solar Glass to reduce heat gain from the afternoon sun and the large, sliding, folding doors allow the full width of the rear of the house to be open to the terrace and garden.
The clients are keen cooks and we designed a linear kitchen, which like many of our kitchens, was purpose made by our joiners. It was completed with a Hi-Mac work surface and continuous backsplash. The floor is a poured resin over underfloor heating. Which is both comfortable and highly functional.
In addition to work here, we renovated the rest of the house retaining and enhancing the original Georgian features and making a more comfortable living space on all floors of the house.
Thanks to James Balston for the Times Magazine images
Built in 1805, this Grade II listed Georgian building was originally constructed for artisans. We worked in collaboration with the client, Lesley Kingsbury. The original floor timbers, staircase and chimney breasts were all retained and where possible, incorporated into the new fabric. Conservation was of paramount concern, to both the owners and the local conservation officer, and many features and details of the building which had over the years been removed where painstakingly replaced with new, traditionally made elements. The basement rooms had very low ceilings and it was decided to excavate the ground thereby increasing the ceiling heights significantly. The walls where underpinned together with a re-inforced ground slab and the whole of the basement was opened up to provide a kitchen/living room with a small garden to the rear and a ‘green wall’. This enabled light to penetrate the space, as well as enhancing the feeling of space.
Wrap Around Extension Chiswick
The owners of two neighbouring houses both wanted to extend their homes at ground floor level so we designed the extensions to work together supporting the existing two upper story extensions on steelwork to give clear open areas between the party walls.
This house incorporates a gap in the terrace which had been partially filled with a single storey extension containing several congested spaces. This was opened up and altered to provide an additional office, workshop and utility space along one side of the dinning area. It can be closed off behind floor to ceiling height doors.
Glass Shower Room
The problem with everyone wanting their own bathroom is that the traditional house does not accommodate this easily and in a listed buildings, the requirements of the Conservation department add further limitations. A self contained bathroom or shower room that could be placed in a room like a piece of furniture would solve the problem. Here, the smallest convenient shower room has been designed to do just this.
The floor, back and roof are made of acrylic resin Hi-Macs (similar to Corian) with the shower base and drainage grooves formed in it. The door and walls are of toughened glass (which would normally be sandblasted for privacy) with the door set behind. Elements of standard sanitary ware were used along with specially designed and engineered stainless steel columns incorporating Vola tap mechanisms.
As a practice we enjoy the challenge of designing elegant solutions for tricky problems like this one.
Urban House at end of Terrace - Murray Street Camden NW1
The site was the raised back garden of a large end of terrace house in Camden Square that faced onto a side street and also formed the corner of the mews behind. The covered entrance was cut into the site from the side street to give access to a garage/studio and to an orangery like entrance to the house at the garden level some 600mm above.
The original garden wall was rebuilt to full height, the garden paved and the floor tiled. Behind this wall an independent two storey, Iroko frame was built without metal fastenings but simply with wooden pegs. This frame sits on ceramic feet made by the tile manufacturer and laid as part of the tiling. The plan of the house consists of nine squares with the staircase core in the centre covered by a glass pyramid. Off this core the various rooms are arranged. Three sides, the external walls, are fully glazed with sliding Iroko window/doors , the partitions and upper floors are also of exposed timber faced with plywood and all clear finished. Thus the Iroko structure is dark and the Birch plywood is light.
The built in furniture follows the same discipline naturally.
This project was a total refit of an unloved Victorian house. The previously closed ground floor space was opened up and several levels were rationalised. Original features had been stripped out by previous owners so we designed and had fabricated good reproductions to take their place. The restricted palate included pale oak floors and putty coloured walls. This rather calm backdrop allowed splashes of colour to enliven the open plan room.
Over-cladding - Parsons House Edgware Road W9
In 19... were asked by the City of Westminster to replace the windows in this tower block, as they were decayed and falling out, having been too exposed for their construction. We were expected to replace these with modern airtight double glazed windows, which would have reduced the ventilation, increased the temperature and resulted in serious condensation. In addition we were expected to arrange for this to be done from scaffolding, which would have been a threat to privacy as well as security.
By applying non flammable Rockwool insulation to the outside of the building and hanging the new windows over the existing ones from rising platforms we were able to avoid all these problems while giving the dated building a new look and improving the performance significantly. By informing the residents with the aid of the housing department we were able to initiate a neighbourhood watch and involve them in the decisions choices etc. Finally when the new cladding was in place the contractors were able to remove the old windows from inside so that residents were subjected to the minimum of inconvenience.
We chose to make all the components of aluminium to avoid rusting and wood because to this day it performs better than metal. The wood was protected from the elements by aluminium all of which was powder coated. The structure was picked out in red and the rest was coated pale grey. Red was chosen because it continues to look good even when not cleaned in addition to which the whole system was designed to be self-cleansing.
Finally the building that looked like an extrusion before was given a top by adding a maintenance cradle rail and a bottom by vandal proof tiling so that it now looks like a complete building.