Duggan Morris Architects

2012

16a Kings Grove for a private client, London

The judges were impressed by the discreet entrance to this new build all-brick house in the back lands of two Victorian terraces in Peckham. The architects had to deal with local residents, party wall agreements and the local planning department to come up with a home that, inside and out, is practical, simple, subtle, timeless and elegant. The site, reached by a narrow lane, is contained by back gardens. The house is arranged with ground floor living spaces connected to the two bedrooms by means of a simple stair and a central light-well. The maturity in layout and detailing is evident throughout, not least in the striking bespoke brass window frames recessed into the front and rear facades. Despite this being a home for the architects themselves, there is little sign of the architect...but plenty of architecture.

“This scheme places a two-storey contemporary dwelling onto a vacant plot, located at the intersection between gardens of back to back terraced houses, in an established residential area, Peckham. The building geometry, orientation and size is driven by the site constraints of two non-parallel boundary conditions, issues of privacy within neighbouring gardens and rights of light to existing neighbouring windows. The building form is expressed with a simple, reduced palette of materials; brick internally and externally, whilst polished concrete, oak and white wash complete the scheme. The scheme is intended to be open, free flowing and flexible, and the internal living spaces are intended to be read against the articulate landscape, which is finished at low level with pink dogwood interspersed through a canopy of indigenous ornate trees. ”

Duggan Morris Architects
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