Studio for a Printmaker

The existing house sits at a raised level above the street and has a highly modelled facade of bays and recesses. A new extension creates a new bay-window of glass blocks that is both distinctive from and in sympathy with the language of the existing building. The use of glass blocks, allows the maximum amount of diffuse light to penetrate into the depth of the space and the translucency has the additional quality of maintaining privacy from the street during the daytime and appears lantern-like after dark. During the design process it was discovered that the house was built in the same year as the world's most famous glass-brick house - the Maison De Verre in Paris – a piece of serendipity that seemed further justification for the choice of materials. The white, rendered frame that surrounds the glass bricks allows the extension to be understood as a third ‘bay’ that adds to the two existing bays that articulate the front elevation. This new bay sits on a plinth, with steps and ramps in a dark engineering brick, that provide improved access to the house. Two metal-clad cupolas bring daylight into the middle of the long, narrow plan. Above the studio space at the east end, the cupola is oriented so as to admit an even, north-light. At the west end, the rooflight is tilted towards the south, bring stronger, direct light into the space where the connection into the house is made.

Internally, the glass blocks provide a utilitarian character to the interior which works well with the robust finishes required for a studio space: lacquered mdf wall linings, rubber flooring and black painted metalwork.