Our client wanted to improve arrival from public street to family home following the London townhouse tradition: an enclosed area, a generous entrance with cloaks, home office, utility and hall opening into the main reception rooms. Given tight physical parameters, we worked with our client through sketch options to draw out essentials and distil an economic and coherent form.

The new entrance hall and bedroom sit one above the other expressed as a wooden tower. Its highly insulated timber frame is clad in black stained larch weatherboarding like a rustic shed, reflecting the neighbourhood’s pre-industrial heritage of market gardens growing fruit, vegetables and flowers.

Sustainability innovations include an early installation of solar thermal panels and using both ‘raw’ and ‘cooked’ timber details, such as the coppiced hazel rod fencing, to reconcile polar desires for both security and welcome.

The project was winner of NLA’s Don’t Move, Improve! Best Use of Timber Award.