A brand new London home from Henley Halebrown Architects takes a delicate strategy to its historic web site, weaving fashionable residing areas right into a cluster of buildings that embrace an early twentieth-century public corridor and the Twelfth-century St Mary’s Church, Barnes. Occupying a spot in a Sixteenth-century walled backyard, the T-shaped constructing is damaged down into two components.
The home is a bravura composition in brick
(Picture credit score: Nick Kane)
Step inside this sensitively designed London home
To the south lies an oak framed single-storey construction, with a glazed wall framed with Douglas fir and a copper roof. It abuts a two-storey masonry element with a inexperienced roof. The distinction between supplies and processes eases the transition between the home and the tall flank wall of the adjoining public corridor on one facet, and brick-built personal homes on the opposite, while the monk bond darkish brown brickwork was chosen to match that of the traditional church.
Element of the brick chimneys on the Home in a Walled Backyard
(Picture credit score: Henley Halebrown)
It’s a sometimes bravura materials show from the award-winning apply which has made its identify with a collection of modest and refined buildings, each public, residential and business, across the UK. Usually exploring new typologies, just like the pioneering Copper Lane co-housing scheme in North London, nominated for an RIBA Regional Award in 2014, in addition to the Chadwick Corridor pupil lodging, shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2018.
Inside finishes give attention to uncovered brick, timber and terracotta flooring
(Picture credit score: Nick Kane)
This typological selection goes hand in hand with a really seen respect for materials, custom and craft. There isn’t any typical Henley Halebrown undertaking, however a particular sensibility runs via their work, one thing that would loosely be termed neo-Brutalism, not solely via the refined juxtaposition of brick, timber, terracotta and, now and again, concrete, but additionally the social idealism that underpinned the perfect ‘brutal’ structure. Simon Henley was forward of the curve when it got here to the style’s reappraisal; his 2017 monograph Redefining Brutalism predates many, many different books on the topic.
The cosy, set beneath the uncovered timber roof
(Picture credit score: Nick Kane)
The Home in a Walled Backyard actually provides off an elegantly austere vibe. That exterior brickwork, with its insets, tall chimneys and integral brick screens, brings to thoughts the hovering types of an influence station, and even the exactly ordered geometry of Louis Kahn. Element is all the pieces. Bronze window frames add a lustrous sheen to the glazing, pairing superbly with the timber construction, while the darkish bricks are flush-pointed with lime mortar.
Backyard view of the Home in a Walled Backyard
(Picture credit score: Nick Kane)
On the bottom flooring the home is organized round a quartet of residing areas, the corridor, kitchen, eating room and library. You step down barely to achieve the lounge and breakfast room, together with a craft workshop, all overlooking the backyard. On the primary flooring are three bedrooms, while a decrease floor flooring stage homes one other workshop, video games room and the visitor suite. Lastly, there’s a cosy, nestled beneath the bottom level of the lengthy sloping roof.
Wanting from the sunken cosy again into the principle hallway
(Picture credit score: Nick Kane)
On the intersection between timber and brick, the place the roof joists fold into each other is an extended skylight, diffusing gentle into the inside above the breakfast room. Brick screened clerestory home windows additionally convey gentle into the double-hight hallway. Uncovered roof timbers and deep timber-clad window reveals, together with bench-cum-bookshelves lining the partitions give the cosy a heat, enclosed really feel.
A rooflight diffuses daylight into the breakfast room
(Picture credit score: Nick Kane)
The home is ready inside a newly landscaped backyard, with geometry and alignments persevering with out from the inside and establishing a relationship with the robust brick types of the adjoining buildings.
The hallway of the Home in a Walled Backyard
(Picture credit score: Nick Kane)
Gavin Hale-Brown and Simon Henley arrange their studio 1995. Amongst many accolades, the apply has been named the UK’s Healthcare Architect of the 12 months in 2008, Public Constructing Architect of the 12 months in 2011 and Housing Architect of the 12 months in 2021. Their undertaking for a brand new major college and housing at 333 Kingsland Highway in London acquired a Stirling Prize nomination in 2022.
HenleyHalebrown.com, @HenleyHalebrown
Supply: Wallpaper