Eldridge London’s House in Coombe Park, Kingston, is located in a secluded enclave of inter-war suburban bungalows, and takes a markedly contrasting approach to the redevelopment of the site from the pastiche neoclassical neighbours being built nearby.
The client runs a business which creates temporary structures and spaces for sporting events, and has long had an interest in modernism and contemporary design. The opportunity to build his own house offered the potential to ally his enthusiasm for contemporary architecture with a structure of greater permanence and resonance.
Inspired by the sloping landscape and mature oak tree, the House in Coombe Park is a distinctive composition accessed through an open street level allowing the landscape to envelop the building, and maintaining views through to the garden.
The main accommodation is below the entrance rotunda at garden level, connected by a staircase to the first floor structure floating above. The surprising appearance of the building is generated from the specifics of its site and context, but allied to a fully functional plan with the owner committing to the architects imaginative contemporary design. Whilst unexpected in appearance, in their unanimous support of the scheme the Kingston Planning Design Review panel described the building as a “quintessentially ‘Coombe’ house.”
The project reaffirms the practice’s approach to find design inspiration in the specifics of a context to deliver a unique and memorable building rather than seeing contextual design as something which involves replication or imitation. In a setting where the built context was disparate and of limited quality we responded directly to the key landscape features to establish a strong conceptual framework for the plan and section of the building.
Natural materials predominate throughout, with oak flooring, stairs and furniture providing a warm complement to the finely finished exposed concrete, and providing a material link to the focal oak tree. Polished brass and stainless steel elements, internal white marble and external grey limestone paving add a further level of refinement.
The rigorous planning of the house has been carried through into the detailed design, with the ‘trefoil’ shape of the building repeating through the scheme at different scales as a subtle architectural motif: from the shaped vertical aluminium cladding members on the first floor facades, to pull handles on doors.
The external landscaping scheme has also been designed by Eldridge London following the same geometries as the house to ensure an holistic composition with the existing oak tree again becoming the focal element. Hornbeam trees to the side and front boundaries screen the site from the street, whilst the garden lawn continues across the street level entrance roof. A stainless steel path set into the lawn merges into the street level roof edge coping which together define the outline of the trefoil plan form of the spaces below.
A series of vertical cantilever balusters project from these curving alignments forming a shifting moiré- fringe effect as one approaches the building. A cantilevered external stone stair on one side of the building provides external access between the two garden levels, whilst a copse of silver birch trees adds texture and boundary screening to the other side. The landscaping also includes a natural swimming pond, utilising marginal aquatic planting to provide natural filtration and cleansing of the water.
The House in Coombe Park, Kingston, is a refined design response for a specific context and client, but is also demonstrative that high quality contemporary architecture within a suburban environment can be appropriate and respectful whilst also surprising and imaginative; contextual whilst also highly distinctive.
Material Used :
1. NBS / NBS Joinery - Fairfaced Concrete
2. Joe Mellows Furniture Makers - Kitchen/joinery/staircase
3. Detail Metalwork - Bespoke metalwork
4. Coakley & Cox - Bespoke Sofa
5. Dinesen - Oak Floor
6. Pisani / Modo di Marmi - Marble
7. Vola - Bathroom fittings
8. Hydro Aluminium (formerly Sapa) - Aluminium cladding
9. Aquascapes - Swimming Pond
10. Silent Gliss - Curtains
11. IQ Glass - Fixed glass
