Farleigh Flat

Once a very large Victorian townhouse, the property has long since been divided into separate dwellings with our clients purchasing the garden flat occupying the lower two floors.

The garden faces north, and is normally overshadowed by the tall townhouse of flats. Farleigh flat was originally laid out as a one bedroom; the living space covered the well-proportioned Victorian rooms of the upper ground floor, with the kitchen and bedroom in the darker lower ground floor.

The client is a young couple with newly arrived kids. The brief was to change a very generous, but poorly organised flat for a couple, into a great family home. This meant adding two extra bedrooms and moving the kitchen adjacent to the living spaces.

Normally, it’s best to have the living and family spaces opening up to the garden, but here we had competing forces. The living room had great proportions and a huge south facing bay window letting in lots of sunlight - so we decided to keep this arrangement. Moving the kitchen up a level to make this area the main focus of family living. Downstairs is dedicated to the sleeping and bathroom spaces. The kid’s rooms both have glass doors, opening to the garden, and the parents get a generous master suite to the front of the house.

The extension is a timber frame construction - super insulated, and clad in brick. We wanted to explore treating the brickwork as a very obvious non-structural 'screen' on the back of the building. Stack bonding and stepping the brick line in and out, expresses 'hanging' bricks. We worked with Ibstock to create a series of brick specials that hide all visible fixings to lintels and sills. Pushing the brick face in and out allow a sculptural articulation of the form. A similar brick tone to the original London stock allows the new structure to tie in with the main house and the neighbourhood.