You’d Never Guess What This Light-Filled London Home Used to Be

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Project Details:

Location: London, United Kingdom

Architect: Open Practice Architecture / @openpracticearch

Footprint: 1,722 square feet

Builder: Evolve Projects

Structural Engineer: Constructure

Landscape Design: Amabel Barraclough Tom Dawson

Interior Design: Kinder Design

Photographer: Lewis Gregory / @lewisgregoryphotography

From the Architect: "Discreetly tucked behind a quiet mews in East Dulwich, the Coach House makes a clean departure from its precedent as a neglected, cluttered automotive garage and outbuildings. A vision was crafted for the house that would champion materiality, and prioritize light circulation throughout. Whilst focusing on designing a comfortable family home comprising a three-bedroom house, courtyard garden, and guest suite annex, Open Practice Architecture was careful to front a design that also respected the original utilitarian nature of the site and its surroundings.

"The core of the brief demanded that the site was unhampered in volume. Open Practice and Kinder proposed a design approach that would generously work with the original footprint, to forge stronger connections with the garden and create distinct living spaces that seek to draw in natural light. The resulting form is a uniform, cubic L-shape mews building, demarcated by pale brick and punctuated by a wide slat horizontal iroko timber fascia carried out along perpendicular rooflines of the house.

"In order to rationalize boundaries within the compact site, architect Rupert Scott saw an opportunity to prioritize light distribution evenly amongst the main house, excavating large volumes of the central column of the original building. In addition, glazing and wide paneled windows stretch across the ground floor and first floors, each width broken down by vertical timber battens and mullions.

"With a focus on lightness, the Coach House features a considered and calming interior that introduces intervention throughout to reveal spaces to delight in. The main house is screened by calming neutral walls, paired with a light ash flooring and a complementary painted softwood ceiling, adding a weightless effect to the sleeping spaces. Positively taking advantage of its northwest orientation, Kinder and Open Practice introduced another light pocket on the second floor to create a distinguished space, to enjoy a moment privately which now pools a day’s worth of south facing light from a hidden window seat.

"Contemporary material choices continue throughout the Coach House’s interior to uplift and inspire. Exposed aggregate concrete flooring anchors the kitchen and living spaces, to lightly contrast against the oak veneer units and stainless steel countertops. The palette throughout the home has acquired a distinctive patina, cleverly colored in with Kinder’s curated artwork and collected objects. This unique material catalogue forges stronger connection between the rooms, and provides an ideal canvas for Kinder’s selected vintage furniture throughout the Coach House."