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What about the new prospects for outlook?
Good views rarely date.
That’s true. We put the skylight on the north side
of the windows, so the north sun enters but that is
largely managed by the ComfortPlusTM. The big pivot
windows capitalize on the views. The big fixed and
sliding windows connect to the garden and are
specific, yet done without fuss. There wasn’t even
a door previously to connect to the garden.
Is the resistance to extensive glazing in more
built-up areas due to fears about privacy, or
concerns about thermal issues?
Privacy tends to just be a personal preference.
Thermal issues though make a big difference and
huge amounts of glazing can make it difficult to
moderate internal temperatures. In this particular
project we don’t have huge expanses of glass. We
just made sure when we put in a window, it was big.
Isn’t that one of the paradoxes of the green-star
rating system? Many new houses might tick the
boxes, but those boxes are very often gloomy Green.
That’s absolutely true. I grew up in houses that
weren’t hermetically sealed. Quite the opposite
actually. Maybe that’s why I’m against new work
that confuses thermal performance with quality
of light, space and life.
Were there many structural issues to link
those, to knit those two to become one?
We just cut a big hole in the floor that
separated the two. That’s where the staircase
went. The hole and void was bigger than the
staircase, but it’s how most of the light arrives
there. While the garden is downstairs, you live
upstairs. It was important for that staircase to
feel generous and to connect the garde n to
the interior.
Isn’t it about striving to make it
uncomplicated – to simplify?
There’s ingenuity but the approach is not to
overtly express any cleverness. We used a
cell-form, folded steel, plate structural system
for the staircase and worked closely with an
engineer to make sure it didn’t flex. It barely
touches the wall or requires any supporting
structure. The balustrade disguises a lot of the
structural force. The ambition for that staircase
wasn’t to express how complex a structural
system that stair is; the aim is that it sit serenely
in the void, with light washing down. That
produces shadows around the sculptural white
form. The same goes for the pivot and large
windows. We have brought in a ton of light.
WE WORKED CLOSELY WITH THE FABRICATOR SO WE UNDERSTOOD
THE GLASS AND ENSURED THE FRAMES WERE AS FINE AS POSSIBLE
AND INSTALLED FLUSH WITH THE BRICKWORK. Toby Breakspear, Architect