De Beauvoir House

DE BEAUVOIR HOUSE

Scott Architects

De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard

ARCHITECTS
Scott Architects

LOCATION
Greater London, United Kingdom

CATEGORY
Houses

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Elliott Wood

AREA
187.0 sqm

PROJECT YEAR
2013

PHOTOGRAPHS
Craig Sheppard

De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard

De Beauvoir Road is a four-bedroom Victorian terraced house that has been sensitively refurbished and boldly extended as a sculptural form that draws in light from the sky and embraces views of its garden and surrounding trees.

Set within a Hackney conservation area, original period features have been reinstated using traditional methods while a rear extension of sweeping spaces gives new life to a house that was slowly being outgrown by its family’s modern requirements.

The form of the new extension has evolved from the language of the site: its gardens, its brickwork and its neighbouring buildings.

De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard
De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard

Its curved forms are clad in solid oak boarding to add to a carefully selected palette of natural materials - limestone flooring, exposed brickwork walls and restored Baltic pine floorboards.

The interiors are expressed as a series of fluid surfaces and flowing spaces that weave through the home, leading one towards a rear garden that gently extends over the dining room as a green roof of wildflowers.

De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard
De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard

Generously lit indoor family rooms open up and connect with west-facing outdoor spaces. Contemporary forms reveal and celebrate the character of the original house, allowing vertical pools of natural light to wash over exposed brickwork and cleanly composed surfaces. Oak boarding extends through to internal spaces to add texture and visual warmth.

The original building has been fully thermally insulated and includes low energy lighting, under floor heating from a highly efficient boiler and a sloping green roof.

De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard
De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard
De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard
De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard


De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard
De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard
De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard


De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard
De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard


De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard
De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard
De Beauvoir House
© Craig Sheppard