Project Info+

Artist's House

Kensington, London – 2006

The house is part of a rare 1950’s modernist terrace in Kensington. It had not been touched since the early 1950’s but the lifestyles of the new occupants (two artists with a young family) demanded fresh thinking and debate.

The organization of spaces is re-orientated to create: a double height art studio; a study onto a new terrace; a mezzanine bedroom; a timber lined writing room and all spaces arranged around a free standing staircase that rises like a giant saw-toothed sculpture. The rear façade is modified with a new curved glass study and a ground level kitchen below a new first floor terrace. The kitchen is the heart of the house and focused onto Todd Longstaffe-Gowan’s spectacular raking garden.

We proposed making the house stricter Bauhaus than it had ever been. Todd on the other hand made the garden of Palm trees and rolling box more Baroque than it had ever been. Collaboration and juxtaposition is all. The mixture of spaces and the new garden provide intimacy, privacy, surprise views, conviviality and contemplation.

RIBA Award
RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize

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Project Info+

Artist's House

Kensington, London – 2006

The house is part of a rare 1950’s modernist terrace in Kensington. It had not been touched since the early 1950’s but the lifestyles of the new occupants (two artists with a young family) demanded fresh thinking and debate.

The organization of spaces is re-orientated to create: a double height art studio; a study onto a new terrace; a mezzanine bedroom; a timber lined writing room and all spaces arranged around a free standing staircase that rises like a giant saw-toothed sculpture. The rear façade is modified with a new curved glass study and a ground level kitchen below a new first floor terrace. The kitchen is the heart of the house and focused onto Todd Longstaffe-Gowan’s spectacular raking garden.

We proposed making the house stricter Bauhaus than it had ever been. Todd on the other hand made the garden of Palm trees and rolling box more Baroque than it had ever been. Collaboration and juxtaposition is all. The mixture of spaces and the new garden provide intimacy, privacy, surprise views, conviviality and contemplation.

RIBA Award
RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize

Back to top