Dartmouth Row

The result of a competitive interview in which the client desire was for a single point of contact that could effectively manage the renovation of their family home and maintain an open book approach in relation to both costs and programme.

This structure required the client to have a positive approach to risk and an architect willing to be fully immersed in the project.

The client, a former long standing member of Google, encouraged a quiet revolution in the way we work; shared documents, shared risks and shared outcomes, with a focus on architectural discussion and rigour of output.

Situated on the site of a former cattle market and then subsequently the first 'considered' street to be completed in Blackheath, the project sits on the threshold of an elevated area with surrounding land falling away to the south and west to nearby Lewisham. Built by the then Earl of Dartmouth in the late seventeenth century, the project is one half of a symmetrical pair.

The project expands on the studio's recent work seeking to further abstract and reinterpret existing language and motifs present - often offering a result that is both of the old and the new.

Here, external decoration such as the pyramid stretcher bricks, become the inspiration for an ongoing abstraction that permeates the architectural approach and that which is present in spatial divisions, fitted and loose furniture as well as the proportional generator for the design of the smallest of items; the hand-turned iroko door knobs.

The eschewing of what is deemed normative architectural practice and a desire to iterate to, rather than be fully resolved in advance, coupled with close working relationships, resulted in a shared pride of output with each discipline elevating the other - whilst fundamentally allowing breathing space to appraise a given condition.