The Coach House
Rupert Scott, of Open Practice Architecture, launches a second project in collaboration with his partner Leo Wood, founder of interior design studio Kinder Design. Discreetly tucked behind a quiet mews in East Dulwich, the Coach House manages a new perspective on infill sites, exemplifying the value of interiors and architecture working together to allow creativity to flourish in property development.
Marking a clean departure from its precedent as a neglected, cluttered automotive garage and outbuildings, the couple crafted a vision for the house that would champion materiality, and prioritise light circulation throughout.
Whilst focusing on designing a comfortable family home comprising a three bedroom house, courtyard garden and guest suite annexe, Open Practice Architecture was careful to front a design that also respected the original utilitarian nature of the site and its surroundings.
The Coach House is the result of a two phase project, with the pair acquiring the original site in 2017 on auction, completing the main house in 2022 and finishing the latest addition, the annexe in late 2023.
The core of the brief demanded that the site was unhampered in volume. Open Practice and Kinder proposed a design approach that would generously work with the original footprint, to forge stronger connections with the garden and create distinct living spaces that seek to draw in natural light.
The resulting form is a uniform, cubic L-shape mews building, demarcated by pale brick and punctuated by a wide slat horizontal iroko timber fascia carried out along perpendicular rooflines of the house.
In order to rationalise boundaries within the compact site, Rupert saw an opportunity to prioritise light distribution evenly amongst the main house, excavating large volumes of the central column of the original building. In addition, glazing and wide panelled windows stretch across the ground floor and first floors, each width broken down by vertical timber battens and mullions.
The Coach House expresses an interior working in unison with its architecture to create a place of
warmth and generosity. On entering, the occupant is greeted immediately with a vaulted steel staircase wending its way to the second floor to cleanly announce the double height atrium and double width skylight unlocking large volumes of filtered light top down.
With a focus on lightness, the Coach House features a considered and calming interior that introduces intervention throughout to reveal spaces to delight in. The main house is screened by calming neutral walls, paired with a light ash flooring and a complementary painted softwood ceiling, adding a weightless effect to the sleeping spaces.
Positively taking advantage of its north-west orientation, Kinder and Open Practice introduced another light pocket on the second floor to create a distinguished space, to enjoy a moment privately which now pools a day’s worth of south facing light from a hidden window seat.
Contemporary material choices continue throughout the Coach House’s interior to uplift and inspire. Exposed aggregate concrete flooring anchors the kitchen and living spaces, to lightly contrast against the oak veneer units and stainless steel countertops. The palette throughout the home has acquired a distinctive patina, cleverly coloured in with Kinder’s curated artwork and collected objects. This unique material catalogue forges stronger connection between the rooms, and provides an ideal canvas for Kinder’s selected vintage furniture throughout the Coach House.
Materiality is an important design idea to distinguish the annexe from the rest of the home; its addition embodies Open Practice’s and Kinder’s ability to create deliberately contrasting spaces under one roof.
The annexe presents itself as a new sanctuary to reside in, delivering a new family snug and office, with an additional bedroom above. Craftsmanship instructs the space, displayed by its entirely solid ash envelope, and lightwell which offers circulation into the kitchen and beyond. The Coach House features thermal insulation throughout, and is fitted with an outdoor heat source pump.
As compassionate home builders, Open Practice Architecture and Kinder Design realised an opportunity to bring together ambitious architecture and interior design through craft and resourcefulness.
The Coach House represents an energising collaboration between the couple, demonstrating their capability in sensitively disentangling challenging sites, and creating spaces that recognise the importance of preserving small development in restricted urban plots to deliver joyful spaces for living.
