Situated on the corner of Trussley Road, on a plot to the rear of 136 Hammersmith Grove, the undeveloped backland site presented great potential but also suffered from tight constraints, including overlooking and proximity to the street and the bordering Conservation Area. Through careful site analysis and dialogue with the client and local authority, TDO was able to meet the client’s brief for a house designed in a contemporary idiom.
A generously proportioned 3-bed house with abundant outdoor space has been achieved on the constrained site by excavating down, keeping the profile of the house aligned with the surrounding Victorian terraces.
The house is expressed as two volumes: three storeys at the entrance, topped with a roof terrace, and two storeys at the rear. The two volumes face inwards into a sunken, south-facing courtyard. A stairwell links the two volumes, and the change in height is dramatised by a playful, sloping, facetted Corten steel roof which runs along the site boundary brick wall. The inward-facing courtyard elevations are fully glazed, and the street elevations are punctured with rhythmically placed windows.
The central courtyard serves three purposes: it brings abundant daylight into the property, allowing reception spaces to be located on the lower floor; it ameliorates overlooking of the adjacent property by orientating views inwards; and it accommodates the tree canopy of a mature, neighbouring sycamore tree which had a tree preservation order on which constrained the massing of the house.
Constructed from an in-situ concrete frame with Mystique stock brick elevations that pay tribute to the Victorian terrace vernacular, the house is distinguished by the window reveals, roof terrace planter walls, bike and bin store, and the house’s signature playful roof - are all fabricated in Corten steel.
The Architects’ Journal