Private House in North London, England by Alan Higgs Architects

Article source: Alan Higgs Architects

This house by Alan Higgs Architects has been shortlisted in this year’s RIBA Awards.

The project was ambitious: adding three large new family living spaces to a historic house, around a mature protected tree.  The site falls in two directions and is bordered by a busy road and The Regent’s Canal and is overlooked by many neighbours.

Image Courtesy © Alan Higgs Architects

• Architects: Alan Higgs Architects
• Project: Private House
• Location: North London, England
  
• Consultants:
  
  • Interior Designer: Carden Cunietti
  • Quantity Surveyor: Dudley Smith Partnership
  • Structural Engineer: Milk Architecture & Design Ltd
  • Services Consultant: CBG Consultants Ltd
  • Landscape Architect: del Buono Gazerwitz
  • Lighting Consultant: Light IQ
  • Arboricultural Consultant: Martin Dobson Associates Ltd
  • Historic Buildings Consultant: Ettwein Bridges Architects
  • AV Consultant: Olive AV Ltd
• Contractor: Harris Calnan Construction Co Ltd

Image Courtesy © Alan Higgs Architects

Principal Subcontractors and Suppliers

The design solution is in two main parts; construction of a garden room, like a 21st century orangery, and a wing of part-subterranean spaces stretching away from the house.  Floors follow the fall of the site as it drops towards the canal, linking various internal and external spaces at different levels in flowing, connected ways.  Car parking, garden space and terraces are retained, now above the new wing.

Image Courtesy © Alan Higgs Architects

Image Courtesy © Alan Higgs Architects

The garden room is a simplified interpretation of the style of the host house, and gives new orientation to the garden.  The new wing is concealed behind a finely made timber screen wall. This minimises its external presence, harmonises disparate window proportions, screens views inwards and refers to the verdant setting.

Image Courtesy © Alan Higgs Architects

Image Courtesy © Alan Higgs Architects

Light enters from tall windows, openings filtered by timber screens, vertical shafts.  Views are manipulated and include seeing St Mark’s Church spire framed through a glass roof.  This powerfully borrowed architecture compensates for a lack of expansive horizontal aspect.  New windows were formed in the nearly closed west façade of the listed house, transforming the rooms within.

The building is a highly insulated concrete structure with natural polished concrete floors and timber and bronze wall paneling.  It is 187 square meters in area.

Lower Ground Floor, Image Courtesy © Alan Higgs Architects

Section A, Image Courtesy © Alan Higgs Architects

Section B, Image Courtesy © Alan Higgs Architects

Tags: England, North London

Categories: House, Residential

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