Set within the Modernist masterpiece Highpoint II in Highgate, this apartment was a full refurbishment and interior renovation.
Berthold Lubetkin’s seminal building of 1938 is Grade 1 Listed and the building fabric is strictly protected. The duplex was in poor condition, having not changed hands in over 50 years and was in need of significant repair and restoration. Coppin Dockray established a dialogue with English Heritage and began the delicate negotiations necessary to agree the work.
A fire had recently swept through a neighboring apartment. As builders cleared out the fire-damaged materials, the architects searched through the debris salvaging door handles, taps, window ironmongery, bathroom tiles and kitchen cabinet handles. By piecing together information, materials and historic components, they set about stitching these into the new design.
The clients wanted a practical family home and they took a long-term approach as well as a ‘do what it takes’ attitude to restoring the original and only surviving 1938 bathrooms and dramatic concertina windows. The non-original servants’ kitchen was replaced with a new and efficient design in order to fit modern day appliances into the existing building fabric. A new study was formed and the finishes and fittings throughout were renewed. The striking colour palette of blues and browns was developed based on le Corbusier’s 1931 colour collection, his Polychromie Architecturale.
The result is a uniqueand beautiful apartment – rigorously handled within the constraints and opportunities offered by thisageing modernist building.
