London
MID-CENTURY HOLLAND PARK HOUSE
When the client first contacted us about this Holland Park house, it was intriguing to find it perfectly preserved with the original wallpaper intact, and a layout from the era when the kitchen was banished to a tiny annex off the dining room. Connecting the galley kitchen and dining room into a unified living-dining space and installing a huge skylight over the stairwell to flood light through the three floors of accommodation were key interventions in this quest to revitalise the property.
We have worked on a number of these 1950’s properties in the area where a significant proportion of the small footprint of the house was originally designated as a garage, testament to the reverence of the motorcar at that time. With the car sensibly banished from the house, we were able to create a calm and functional study in this space, with glimpses to Holland Park through the new window and smart hidden joinery storage. Personal touches abound, in the refreshed incarnation of what was the client’s childhood home. These include a bespoke fireplace by the clients’ husband, the sculptor Johannes von Stumm, and decorative flourishes to the cloakroom, displaying the client’s call sheets from Ballet productions gone by. These elements were curated as part of the complexly colourful interiors scheme under the discerning eye of Lonika Chande and her team, with whom we worked closely.
When the client first contacted us about this Holland Park house, it was intriguing to find it perfectly preserved with the original wallpaper intact, and a layout from the era when the kitchen was banished to a tiny annex off the dining room. Connecting the galley kitchen and dining room into a unified living-dining space and installing a huge skylight over the stairwell to flood light through the three floors of accommodation were key interventions in this quest to revitalise the property.
We have worked on a number of these 1950’s properties in the area where a significant proportion of the small footprint of the house was originally designated as a garage, testament to the reverence of the motorcar at that time. With the car sensibly banished from the house, we were able to create a calm and functional study in this space, with glimpses to Holland Park through the new window and smart hidden joinery storage. Personal touches abound, in the refreshed incarnation of what was the client’s childhood home. These include a bespoke fireplace by the clients’ husband, the sculptor Johannes von Stumm, and decorative flourishes to the cloakroom, displaying the client’s call sheets from Ballet productions gone by. These elements were curated as part of the complexly colourful interiors scheme under the discerning eye of Lonika Chande and her team, with whom we worked closely.
This exquisite refurbishment and contemporary subterranean extension to a Stucco fronted 1860’s Chelsea Villa, was undertaken to enhance, extend and provide a monochromatic background to the life of art collectors.
Located within the Little Bolton’s Conservation Area, the design sought to faithfully restore the classic proportions and decorative qualities of the original upper floors, while taking the bold step to switch to a thoroughly minimal aesthetic below.
The manipulation of light and shade through carefully considered apertures, which artfully pierce the lower volumes, create the illusion that these spaces are not underground after all. The rigorously restrained palate of black and white stone, plaster and glass, and the well thought through reorganization of the flow and order of spaces converge into a calm, almost monastic sequence of spaces, divided, or not depending on preference, by a sophisticated sequence of joinery and pivot or pocket doors.