Black House

The commission was to design a new house for a couple whose adult children had already left, in Golders Green, a residential suburb of the early 20th century in North London. The new house takes the place of a 1940s bungalow that was originally on the site and was demolished. The permission limited the design to a very similar formal response. The strategy was to follow this condition to the letter and to reproduce the volume of the bungalow geometrically, like a large container but which is more spacious inside. The orientation of the living spaces of the house such as the living room, the kitchen and the bedrooms towards the rear garden led to the solution of a free façade that allowed southern light to enter the circulation and allowed the interior space to be released vertically.
The span of the steel structure is the entire width of the house and is solved with a Vierendeel framework, which frees the ground floor from columns and partitions and houses the living spaces of the first level in its cant.
The geometry of the house responds to the parameters of maximum occupancy allowed on the site by the regulations and the will to maintain the shape of the bungalow as a way to integrate into the context of the street.
The black slate finish used homogeneously on walls and ceilings responds to the intention of simplifying the volume and its details to integrate into the volumetric context of the street but acquire a contemporary character and individuality in the context of the suburb.

The project was developed within AS Studio, London.