Totteridge Village

This project was for the creation of a new home for a retired artist in Totteridge. The house occupies a secluded South facing sloping site with unimpeded views across the Darlands nature reserve and back towards London. There was strict planning restriction on the overall height of the building, and it was a requirement that the house should not be seen from the road. Consequently, it was set down into the site and the ground was regraded to accommodate this and form a terrace on the South side of the house.

The design was conceived in the style of Scandinavian mid-century houses with its single storey form and the use of white brick and dark stained wood which is used inside and outside. The house itself is strongly defined by the client’s needs as a passionate collector of art and objects and as a keen gardener.

At the entrance a wall which extends out from the house and gate separate the parking area from a small courtyard space which encloses a mature Japanese maple tree. This was retained as a feature from the previous house.

As with other projects it was carefully ensured that the foundations did not affect this tree as it was such an important and distinctive feature of the site. This courtyard also allowed the client to display some of the sculptures that she had accumulated from travelling.

From this courtyard you enter a glazed entrance hall that leads to the kitchen dining living room space which runs front to back. The living room space at the rear opens out to the far-reaching views with distant trees, newly planted meadow and an outdoor terrace while the kitchen space has a projecting bay window which faces towards a more intimate terraced garden cut into the slope of the site with smaller scale plants such as ferns and woodland flowers.

This serves to create two distinctly different spaces – shaded and light, distant and near, within the same garden. The landscape is an important part of the project, and a variety of planting is used to suit the light and shade of the house.

Accessed through a top lit corridor which incorporated display shelving for more of the client’s collection of objects, all the primary bedrooms face South onto the garden with the master bedroom occupying the most prominent position on the Southeast corner of the site.

In addition, an existing outbuilding was repurposed as a studio and an outdoor swimming pool and cabana was added in a secluded corner of the site. We were responsible for overseeing the project from concept to completion and putting together a team comprising of the quantity surveyor, structural engineer, mechanical and electrical engineer, and the main contractor. In addition, we procured specialist packages from trusted suppliers including joinery, lighting, kitchen and landscaping to achieve our design.