A Concrete Home, Brick Warehouse
What happens when you have a brick warehouse and you wish to convert it's former usage into a beautiful modern home? Ignore the beautifully exposed brick construction and build your own concrete intervention within it of course.
Titled 'House and Studio Lambeth', such a new building has been designed by architects Carmody Groarke and can be found semi-secretly behind the brick shell of a former Victorian warehouse in south London (UK). A mixed-use residential and office development that is landlocked on all sides by traditional Victorian housing, such a site only possesses two existing entrances for access. With the site having previous industrial usage, the project proposes the rebuilding of a large area of office space across the entirety of the ground floor, and offers a single storey 'pavilion' residence at first-floor level; the result is a compelling juxtaposition of both usage and materiality.
Retaining all of the vestiges of the Victorian warehouse walls at all site boundaries, the ground floor offices benefit from having characterful exposed brick. By comparison, the 'pavilion' residence is a cluster of small units, each with brick externally and exposed concrete inside, and all designed according to the sensitivities of the respectively neighbouring Victorian houses. With a landscaped roof garden to give a visual amenity to the neighbours and character to the new house, the glaring difference between the cool white of the concrete and the sandy brown of the brick is really quite apparent.
Clearly preferring to develop the site over it's existing structures as opposed to any mass site clearance, SATORI & SCOUT commends such an achievement, however, our studio might have alternatively preferred to see brick walls featured inside the residence too. With the brick acting as a skin around the residence and office space, such a materiality juxtaposition offers a curious thought, but is the clear interior-exterior difference the best way to go about this design? With a beautifully elongated concrete stair connecting the two levels and site usages, such a rise between the space hierarchy is equally compelling. Offering four bedrooms, the home features a playroom, small office space and a home cinema to add to it's oozing quality and modernity that is continually boosted by the plethora of narrow glazing panels (windows) and an amazing terrace space. With almost all interior fixtures and fittings made out of concrete, such a material absolutely dominates and unifies all the interior spaces.
A job well done, we think?! Discover more about the architects online at: CarmodyGroarke.com
Photography credit : Gilbert McCarragher