Year: 2005
Estimate contract value: £500,000

Belsize Architects were invited to come up with a design to create a single home from the combination of a garage and a house in Kensington Garden Mews. The brief suggested that the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea would not allow an additional floor and that change to the elevation would have to be quite subtle. The new arrangement in this design was for the bedrooms to be on the ground floor and the living accommodation on the first floor. The reason was that, whereas natural light and openness play an important role in living areas, bedrooms do not necessarily need to have a lot of light. By introducing roof lights and larger windows, it was possible to achieve this light and openness on the first floor. In addition, a roof garden, which would be a great asset for a mews house, was introduced in the scheme, with easy access from the living area onto the roof. The roof garden has a screen to the rear to provide privacy for the large houses behind as well as for the residents of the mews houses. The staircase from 1st floor to the roof, while being open, creates a natural separation between the kitchen and the living room and is designed to be an interesting object in its own right. Our proposal for the elevation derives its inspiration from the concept of the original mews house, with timber slats on the ground floor in reference to the original stable doors. Here the slats are similar to vertical angled louvers which allow light through and have a clear storey at the top. The slats are fixed to the front with the glazed window to the back of them.