ARBOUR HOUSE /
NIMTIM ARCHITECTS
T
he client, a young professional, approached us to extend
her small 1950’s infill terraced house in Peckham to create
a more usable kitchen and dining area with a better
connection to the rear garden. The existing house had particularly low
ceiling heights and narrow, awkward living spaces. The client felt that
the house had been built from poor quality materials which compared
poorly with the Victorian neighbours. The brief was to create a bright
and open living space with materials of quality and character.
nimtim took an ambitious approach for extending and updating this
small and unremarkable house. Taking inspiration from the Case Study
Houses of the 1950s, as well as traditional and contemporary Japanese
domestic architecture, nimtim proposed an addition formed of a series
of lightweight timber portals running both front to back and side to
side. The timber structure defines a series of openings along the roof
and onto the rear garden. This grid extends through the house and out
into the garden; blurring the threshold between inside and out.
The design references the original Victorian property that was situated
on the site before being destroyed in the Second World War; stepping
back in plan to echo the original closet wing, while allowing the garden
to extend into the living space.
Internally materiality was key; materials had to be high quality,
with a distinctive, honest timbre - in direct contrast to those of the
existing dwelling. The exposed timber portal frames are in Douglas Fir
that creates a warm, pink hue, the floor is poured concrete and an
exposed wall of specially selected long bricks runs along one edge
of the living space extending out into the garden. A restrained, simple
“THE
palette is maintained with the translucent white plywood kitchen with
DESIGN
R EFER ENC ES
THE
OR IGINAL
VI CTO RI A N
PR OPER TY THAT WAS SITUATED ON THE SITE BEF O RE
wooden and marble worktops. Every material quietly affirms itself
B EING DESTR OYED IN THE SECOND WOR LD WAR. ”
independently and collectively.
The beds were planted with prickly Berberis and large bulbous Hebes.
nimtim architects and their sister company nimtim landscapes worked
Yellow Yarrow and Turkish Sage flowers give colour interest and height
together from the beginning to create a design where the house and
to the bed. A young pear tree provides a focal point at the back of the
garden were completely integrated. A simple and bold garden plan
garden and a trellis with climbing honeysuckle hides a small shed and
proposed a large paved area of elegant and low cost pavers with a
provides vertical interest.
large planted area that mirrored the geometry of the house creating an
axis that extends into the stepped plan of the house.
www.nimtim.co.uk
PHOTOS: WWW.ELYSEKENNEDY.COM
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