Kenilworth Avenue
Services
Architecture
Design
Fabrication
Construction
Project Description +
We were engaged to help connect and improve the existing spaces of a Victorian terrace house for a growing family. As working, creative professionals, the clients also needed a secluded space to work from home as well as an extra bedroom.
The client had a modest budget and a baby on the way which set a narrow time frame. We suggested phased works, starting with a remodel of the existing house. Phase two was to create a new build studio at the foot of the garden. Moving the study out of the main house saved money and vacated the required second bedroom.
Phase 1: Main House.
We began by opening up and reconnecting the existing ground floor spaces with a warm yet modest palette of natural materials and lots of white. This made the most of the abundant natural light offered by the position and the house being ‘end of terrace’. A neutral colour scheme also allowed colour and pattern to come from the busy day-to-day lives of the growing family. A small lean-to extended and finished in blackened larch gave vital utility and garden storage to serve the living spaces and set a material palette for the external works.
Phase 2: Garden Studio.
The clients (a cinematographer and a producer) needed a larger than usual home studio. We proposed a new lightweight pavilion to sit under an existing Cherry tree, recalling the client’s much loved Japanese tea-house aesthetic. This is essentially a concrete box with a blackened timber lid and is sited to receive the warm afternoon light which, when filtered through the shifting cherry blossom feels at once contemplative yet lambent.
Externally, stained larch cladding sits above the upstanding concrete walls of the board marked in-situ raft slab. The waterproof concrete allowed a flush threshold from the garden to the studio, optimising floor to ceilings where planning constraints set a limit on the overall building height. The datum between concrete and timber is maintained into the studio space, set at desk height we lined the shell with a combination of clear lacquered and painted plywood panelling. A large rooflight reaches upwards at the centre of the plan and with carefully positioned windows screened by timber louvres, the experience of natural light is enriched throughout the passing days and seasons. We designed, managed and built both phases in just under nine months.
Project Summary +
Client Private
Location Walthamstow, London
Sector Residential
Scope Interior Alterations & Garden Studio
Value £120,000
Area 100m2
Status Complete
