House Little Venice
Exterior View (Photo: William Eckersley)
Living Space 1 (Photo: William Eckersley)
Living Space 2 (Photo: William Eckersley)
Hydraulic Door (Photo: William Eckersley)
Feature Wall (Photo: William Eckersley)
Scooby Doo Door (Photo: William Eckersley)
Sleeping Quarters (Photo: William Eckersley)
Library (Photo: William Eckersley)
Drawings
Section
Project
House Little Venice
House Little Venice
London / Grande-Bretagne, 2011
Description
A glimpse between the neat regimented rows of grand cream-coloured stucco Victorian mansions that define this elegant part of London provides a moment of surprise: a sleek matt black zinc and glass contemporary building attached to a modest former coach house bounded by secret walled gardens nestles in this unlikely most traditional of London settings.
Although a distinctively modern intervention in this leafy urban conservation area, it took detailed negotiations to persuade the local Resident’s Association and Westminster Conservation Officers of the merits of the design. Planning permission was granted on the grounds that the design is a stark contrast in architectural form to its traditional neighbours and the quality of the detailing and materials ensures that the building coexists happily in this urban context.
A discreet door in a side wall off a quiet side street provides the entrance to this extraordinary one bedroom house. An unassuming Victorian coach house built of London stock brick with exposed timber trusses has been retained and restored to provide a bedroom suite while the rest of the house has been newly built. The entire project took eighteen months to complete due to structural requirements as well as the bespoke nature of the details, one-off fixtures and finishes.
The new residential building replaces a derelict warehouse discovered in an overgrown plot that had once been a joinery shop for Partridges of Bond Street, renowned antique furniture specialists. The brief called for a unique urban house that playfully acknowledges the industrial heritage of the site with bespoke fixtures and handmade finishes throughout, designed to employ the best of British craftsmanship.
In the coach house the sleeping quarters are set in a theatrical dark space with an Alice in Wonderland play on scale. Dramatic double height wall panelling, reclaimed parquet floors from the demolished warehouse and an oversized roaring fireplace are lit by a vast 1960s chandelier of cast yellow and white glass.
There is a deliberate duality about the contrasting moods in the private and public areas of the house, an intentional schizophrenia in the architectural details employed. A massive pivoting brick wall concealed in the engineering brickwork links these two worlds.
Beyond this threshold point is a radically more modern space bathed in natural light from a hydraulic pivoting wall of glass and a vast louvred skylight above.
In place of slick hi-tech solutions, the structure and mechanics are overtly on show; steelwork is left rusted and raw; polished concrete and structural glass floors combine with black engineering brickwork and specialist plaster to evoke an industrial setting to the public areas of the house; exposed engineered winches and cable mechanisms raise a plasma screen and a bespoke metal and glass chandelier designed by Wells Mackereth.
A slab of structural glass in the floor of the main living space hints at an underground library and screening room below. Here a chestnut leather conversation pit is sunk into the polished concrete floor embraced by the soft glow from the surrounding shelves of books and artifacts.
The split personality in the architecture of the house is echoed in the two contrasting external courtyard gardens linked via a strong axial entrance hall where metal filigree doors offer glimpses of both. The west garden is accessed through French windows from the coach house and is planted in the Victorian Romantic style with an auricula theatre. The east garden is accessed via a hydraulic glass panel and responds to the modernist lines of the new building with structured planting, floating levels, steel water features and specially designed concrete furniture. The garden is thus made to feel like an external room - an extension of the main living space.
Winner Daily Telegraph British Homes Awards 2011 Interior Design
Finalist World Architecture News Awards 2011 Interior Design
Finalist New London Awards 2011
Shortlisted for RIBA Awards 2012
A glimpse between the neat regimented rows of grand cream-coloured stucco Victorian mansions that define this elegant part of London provides a moment of surprise: a sleek matt black zinc and glass contemporary building attached to a modest former coach house bounded by secret walled gardens nestles in this unlikely most traditional of London settings.
Although a distinctively modern intervention in this leafy urban conservation area, it took detailed negotiations to persuade the local Resident’s Association and Westminster Conservation Officers of the merits of the design. Planning permission was granted on the grounds that the design is a stark contrast in architectural form to its traditional neighbours and the quality of the detailing and materials ensures that the building coexists happily in this urban context.
A discreet door in a side wall off a quiet side street provides the entrance to this extraordinary one bedroom house. An unassuming Victorian coach house built of London stock brick with exposed timber trusses has been retained and restored to provide a bedroom suite while the rest of the house has been newly built. The entire project took eighteen months to complete due to structural requirements as well as the bespoke nature of the details, one-off fixtures and finishes.
The new residential building replaces a derelict warehouse discovered in an overgrown plot that had once been a joinery shop for Partridges of Bond Street, renowned antique furniture specialists. The brief called for a unique urban house that playfully acknowledges the industrial heritage of the site with bespoke fixtures and handmade finishes throughout, designed to employ the best of British craftsmanship.
In the coach house the sleeping quarters are set in a theatrical dark space with an Alice in Wonderland play on scale. Dramatic double height wall panelling, reclaimed parquet floors from the demolished warehouse and an oversized roaring fireplace are lit by a vast 1960s chandelier of cast yellow and white glass.
There is a deliberate duality about the contrasting moods in the private and public areas of the house, an intentional schizophrenia in the architectural details employed. A massive pivoting brick wall concealed in the engineering brickwork links these two worlds.
Beyond this threshold point is a radically more modern space bathed in natural light from a hydraulic pivoting wall of glass and a vast louvred skylight above.
In place of slick hi-tech solutions, the structure and mechanics are overtly on show; steelwork is left rusted and raw; polished concrete and structural glass floors combine with black engineering brickwork and specialist plaster to evoke an industrial setting to the public areas of the house; exposed engineered winches and cable mechanisms raise a plasma screen and a bespoke metal and glass chandelier designed by Wells Mackereth.
A slab of structural glass in the floor of the main living space hints at an underground library and screening room below. Here a chestnut leather conversation pit is sunk into the polished concrete floor embraced by the soft glow from the surrounding shelves of books and artifacts.
The split personality in the architecture of the house is echoed in the two contrasting external courtyard gardens linked via a strong axial entrance hall where metal filigree doors offer glimpses of both. The west garden is accessed through French windows from the coach house and is planted in the Victorian Romantic style with an auricula theatre. The east garden is accessed via a hydraulic glass panel and responds to the modernist lines of the new building with structured planting, floating levels, steel water features and specially designed concrete furniture. The garden is thus made to feel like an external room - an extension of the main living space.
Winner Daily Telegraph British Homes Awards 2011 Interior Design
Finalist World Architecture News Awards 2011 Interior Design
Finalist New London Awards 2011
Shortlisted for RIBA Awards 2012