Leighton Road
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Kitchen and garden
Morgan O'Donovan (website) Download Original
Remodelling and extension of a dilapidated, four-storey Victorian terraced house in Kentish Town
The remodelling and extension of a Victorian terraced house for two international fashion designers. One of the clients is Japanese and both have a strong interest in Japanese culture and aesthetics. The project was developed over a number of years through a discourse threading together ideas about architecture, clothing and fashion, and revolving around ideas of how a building might be dressed, distinctions between grain, pattern and texture and the shared desire for a consistent and legible ‘signature’ through a disparate set of elements.
The finished building balances a quiet approach to the original, characterful fabric of the original building with formally pared back additions. A new bathroom on the second floor is encased in a smooth black fibre cement that accentuates its platonic form. Inside is a Japanese ‘Onsen’ shower room lined with pre-weathered pitch pine used in its natural state. Floor-to-ceiling glass doors create an oculus-like view of tree tops whilst allowing those inside to remain hidden from view.
A damp, dark series of awkward spaces and niches at ground floor were extended and opened up to create a single, naturally-lit room around which family life revolves. The new staircase creates a conscious transition between the remodelled ground floor and the original spaces of the upper floors. Elsewhere a more nuanced dialogue is formed between new and original elements by the use of reclaimed materials, such as aged pine planks used to replace tired timber floorboards.
Data
- Begun: Aug 2009
- Completed: Mar 2011
- Floor area: 158m2
- Sector: House
- Total cost: £248,000
- Tender date: May 2009
- Procurement: Traditional, single stage tender process. Intermediate Building Contract (JCT 2005).
- Address: 152 Leighton Road, Kentish Town , London, NW5 2RE, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: Manalo and White Architects
- Client: Chris and Izumi Laszlo
- Main contractor: Acorn Refurbishments
- Structural engineer: Price and Myers
Suppliers
- Glazing contractor: Fineline Aluminium
- Rooflights: Glazing Vision Flushglaze
- Concrete flooring: Steyson Granolithic Contractors
- Reclaimed Materials: Hargreaves
- Mineral Fibre cladding: Marley Eternit