Leighton Road

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.