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Project Details:

Location: Mile End, London, United Kingdom

Architect: Charles Holland Architects / @charleshollandarchitects

Builder: A Builder's Team

Structural Engineer: Morph Structures

Photographer: Jim Stephenson / @clickclickjim

From the Architect: “Charles Holland Architects has completed a major retrofit of a Victorian terrace house in Ropery Street, a conservation area in east London. The project transforms the existing house into a sustainable modern home that uses color, decoration, and playful details to add a sense of delight.

“Responding to the client’s brief to avoid the customary highly glazed, single-room extension, a more subtle series of interconnected rooms now offers a rich mix of spaces and a variety of experiences.

“CHA upgraded the house’s fabric, structure, and energy performance. A sequence of interior and exterior ‘rooms’, comprising a small courtyard, a study, and a dining room are connected by circular windows that bring light deep into the interior. Rather than demolish the existing rear extension, the structure was retained whilst adding insulation, removing suspended ceilings along with sections of floor to open-up the interior to light and internal views. A new single-story side return adds additional ground floor space.

“Internally the design plays with the language of Victorian moldings and domestic decorative detailing. This language becomes the starting point for an exuberant play on the familiar. As the house steps down from front to back, an exaggerated skirting board is used as a datum, beginning at a standard height at the front and rising to over 600mm at the rear.

“The skirting and associated dado rail are detailed to continue over doors that are set flush with the wall to provide a sense of surprise and discovery to the interior. A painted datum in pink further extends this idea of the interior as a series of horizontal strata. A small lightwell is carved out between the front and rear sections of the house to create a moment of vertical drama and a visual link between the ground and first floors. This void is lit by a stained-glass window with an ‘op-art’ decorative design that projects a delicate pattern of colors into the interior.

“Externally, the rear of the house is finished in a contemporary version of ‘rough-cast’ render. Like the interior decorative scheme, the rear elevation is split by a horizontal shift in color from pale gray to bright white. Windows and doors are timber, double-glazed units finished in mustard yellow, and rainwater goods are metal-finished in jade green. A generous external concrete step with exposed aggregate provides a place for plants and a threshold between the house and its garden.

“The property, originally constructed in the 1880s, had been neglected for many years and had begun to suffer from damp and structural problems. Poor construction of the rear, two-story extension had also resulted in cracking in the brickwork due to minor subsidence.”