Highgate Studios 53-79 Highgate Road London NW51TL
project image
Wrap house
London
The brief for this project was to extend and enlarge the ground floor area of a large detached house with a variety of spaces that are linked and continuous. To add further complexity, the building was to be equally interesting from above, where it was overlooked by the master bedroom. ABA’s response developed through distorting a single surface into a folded landscape. This allowed us in each manipulation, to control both the quality of the internal spaces and the external appearance from the garden and first floor windows. The triangulated geometry of the roof landscape compresses to create an intimate internal area at one end of the building, whilst maximizing the view of the garden from the master bedroom window. At the other end of the building, the roof folds upwards to offer views into the garden and up into the existing tree. The building’s skin wraps down to the side of a centrally located fireplace to form an outdoor timber deck. The deck spills out into the garden and turns into a storage room and barbeque area. The process of geometrical manipulation ABA embarked on to achieve this holistic response to the brief was intense and rigorous. The building’s structure, skin, and internal spaces were manipulated until all three elements stabilised and resolved into one crystallized form.