Stone & Steel House
Working with minimal external space, DGN Studio has looked to the sky in their transformation of a Highbury home for a fashion designer, medical research fellow and their young family.
Employing a stone-brick ground-floor extension capped in a lightweight stainless-steel glazed roof, the house remains grounded in its earthy london-brick context, while always looking upwards to the changing skies.
The material language consists of earthy tones & textures for the lower levels of the house, which become lighter and more refined upon ascending to the upper levels. Thick stone, clay and lime plaster create a soft and grainy backdrop to spaces on the ground floor, which then evolve into fine and carefully detailed metalwork as stairs are scaled. This conceptual language was developed in collaboration with friend of the studio, Sarah Izod - a Creative Director in experiential art. DGN Studio materialised this approach into built forms which exploit the potential for tall, top-lit spaces - elevating the daily rituals of cooking, gathering and retreat which were central to their clients brief. Splashes of Yves Klein blue in sofas, stools and furnishings form inviting pools of intensity amongst the neutral textures and tones.
The existing house had a small kitchen with low ceilings, and a poor connection to a tight, north-facing garden. With little external space to sacrifice, DGN proposed the most minimal depth of rear extension - allowing the kitchen to increase in size proportionally to the rest of the house, while preserving the garden as a secluded external room. A side infill-extension was formed for dining - without the ability to extend back, DGN saw an opportunity to push upwards - creating a double-height space that achieves a sense of grandeur that is both unexpected and delightful. A band of stainless-steel framed clerestory windows at high-level generate the atmosphere of a grand-hall on the footprint of a picnic blanket.
An external palette of sandstone bricks and site-cast concrete sills and lintels give these new volumes a robust presence. At low-level the stone-bricks are cut with a split-face, forming a rusticated base that anchors the volumes to the ground. The sandblasted finish of the stone-bricks above begins the refinement that continues upwards to ground-back concrete and then fine metalwork. The stone-bricks were an opportunity to reduce the carbon impact of the scheme, replacing previously specified carbon-intensive clay-bricks. Paired alongside a fully breathable wall construction of hemp insulation, wood-wool board linings and lime plaster internally this was an opportunity to explore the expressive potential of a more responsible form of construction.
Internally, the sandblasted stone-bricks are deployed as a thick threshold between the old and new parts of the house. Niches are formed for storage and display - a bespoke series of thin steel shelves supporting a collection of glassware and ceramics. A floor of hexagonal clay tiles creates a relaxed surface for a kitchen that is both sculptural in form and detail, yet highly functional in use. The island is made of high-gloss cabinets set within a metal framework, all under a thick concrete worktop. The refined surface of exposed aggregate, and its curved form make for a natural gathering point, while on the opposite run the same concrete top is left trowelled - a smoother surface for food preparation. Here bespoke stainless-steel cabinets and splashback denote the hard-working side of the kitchen, with folded steel details that echo the chamfered sills & mullions of the clerestory windows opposite. Sleek, thin-framed steel pivot-doors and a casement window sit within the thick stone walls, providing carefully judged views of the newly-planted courtyard-garden beyond.
In the centre of the plan a drawing room acts as a hinge-point in the sequence of rooms. A place for comings and goings around a family heirloom Macintosh Cassina table. Large wall-sized panels allow the surrounding spaces to be closed off and achieve independence when needed, ensuring the house can adapt to the changing demands of a growing family.
The middle two floors are an exercise in subtle, and sometimes untraceable, upgrades - wonky floors and severely sloping staircases have been levelled to accommodate a new narrow-planked oak floor. At first floor level, the large, light-soaked front room is adopted as a studio for the fashion designer. The increased privacy of the second floor is given to the two primary bedrooms. Bathrooms are supplemented with generous utility facilities at first floor level, and a large soaking tub on the second-floor.
Scaling further up the house, an awareness of a new stair above becomes apparent. Offset from its enclosing walls, a sense of lightness is introduced which is further accentuated by the fine metal balustrade tracing a line up to another clerestory window which floods the stairwell in a calm north-light. At the half-level a door leads out to a newly formed roof terrace - capping this rear volume with a deck on which to pause for long views over surrounding rooftops. The consistent aluminium detailing of the face of the roof extension simplifies the additional volume and allows doors and windows to recede, forming a more uniform surface on which to read the changing light and reflected skies. Internally, the loft provides a space of retreat, with white-painted timber floorboards and fine powdercoated metal window reveals. It is gallery-like in its sense of serenity, and complimented by a top-lit powdery blue microcement ensuite.
