Ferguson

In place of the usual sequence of proposal and approval, the design was generated through a lockdown dialogue that extended throughout the build and which reached across disciplines - both respecting and exploring the specialist understanding of the participants. Named after the found nameplate of a previous occupier, the single-room apartment occupies part of the ground floor of a Victorian tenement and had fallen into disrepair.

An agreed intent of the project was to encourage movement and to allow a flexibility of use unusual for such a small space. The raising of existing structural openings and insertion of pragmatic new ones allows the small space to be explored in three dimensions. Where once there were ‘dead ends’, a stroll ‘around’ the apartment is now possible.

Where once the 3.4m tall volume felt disproportionately high, a mezzanine level contains a sleeping area with high-level views to all parts of the apartment.

In plan, all explicit function (sleeping, resting, washing, cooking, the business of arrival and vertical circulation) is pushed to the edge and accommodated within a single highly tactile composition. This compression of function resulted in an unusual proportion of unprogrammed space – arranged laterally to capture light from the two large South-facing windows and absent the loose furniture which might define it as a ‘living’ space.

In contrast to the relative simplicity of the open space, function is also signified through an intensity of colour, formal expression and a varied material experimentation observable in the fully Mirrl-lined shower room, and in the cast red concrete sink and yellow fibreglass basin that gained prominence as frequent hand-washing became a necessity.