Duggan Morris | Kings Grove, London

Fuente: Duggan Morris architects, Dezeen
Fotografía :David Grandore, Edmund Sumner, Mark Hadden

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 site is approached via a 2.5m wide slip road located within a break between two terraced dwellings, and is thus hidden from the street. Once within the site, existing high brick boundary walls create a large enclosed courtyard, within which the new building is placed. The site strategy thus creates a fully free flowing ground condition, where courtyards to the front and rear of the building are connected through the building and full height glazed facades to the south and north elevations.

The building form is expressed with a simple, reduced palette of materials; brick internally and externally (including large sections of raised brick plinths within the landscape mirroring window openings within the elevations), whilst polished concrete, oak and white wash complete the scheme. 

A double height, glass roof void, is driven through the centre of the plan, increasing the penetration of natural light, whilst ensuring connectivity between ground floor living spaces and upper floor study and bedroom spaces.

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 (from the genus Cornus) interspersed through a canopy of indigenous ornate trees. 

Project: House in Kings Grove

Place: London
Architect: Duggan Morris Architects
Start on site date: September 2009
Contract duration: 35 weeks
Gross internal floor area in m2: 140sqm gross area
Form of contract: JCT Intermediate Form with subcontractors design portion
Total cost: £320,000
Cost per m2: £2285.00
Client: Private
Structural engineer: Lyons O’Neill
Environmental Design Consultant: Brooks Devlin
Party wall Surveyor: BCS Consulting
Main contractor: ME Construction Ltd
Annual CO2 emissions: 2825KgCO2/yr (Combined total for space heating, DHW = 2375KgCO2/yr. Pumps, fans and lighting = 450KgCO2/yr)