A two bed Victorian terrace flat was completely refurbished and extended to create a modern 4 bedrooms specious live/ work space. The space was re defined to accommodate an office on the raised ground floor, open plan kitchen living room, en-suit guest bedroom in the first floor, and a master suit plus a baby room in the converted loft space.
On site hand fabrication of digitally designed elements, recycled materials and restoration of original elements, were used to negotiate between high specifications, finishes and detailing and a very tight budget. The project features frameless and hidden high doors, hidden light details as well as several bespoke elements designed and built by Scenario Architecture:
Focal Shift - Space defining fireplace (Shortlist, Emerging Architecture Awards 2009)
The design of this fire place originated from a habitation scenario which demanded a spatial separation between the lounging and cooking/eating spaces, whilst keeping the large space as open as possible.
The response to this brief resulted in the re-formation of the existing chimney wall –extending it out and tilting in, towards the sitting area. This generated a visual focal shift towards the centre of the main seating area. The outer surface maintains its original materiality- that of the surrounding walls while the inner surface is made of polished high alumina heat resistance concrete.
Wet surface - Single surface bathroom A continuous white soft and warm surface forms a complete wet room solution, warping around its integrated features. Designed and built as a functioning prototype for a series of digitally designed and produced wet surface solutions. The aim is to develop a functional, non slippery and easy to maintain wet surface systems, eliminating the dependency on traditional tiling solutions along with their familiar disadvantages. The flexibility of digital fabrication of substrate is combined with new elastic coating materials used for the first time at an architectural scale and context.
Light rail - Handrail and lighting feature
The original rail was replaced by solid banister perforated at 3 strategic locations by a pattern which breaks up its solidity as well as lighting up the stairway.
