The Lantern

Extending and refurbishing a Locally Listed residential building that manipulates daylight and threshold conditions.

The brief asked for a series of spaces that had a strong reference to Eastern Design influences whilst manipulating daylight and threshold conditions. All the existing floors and walls were removed with the building being stripped back to the existing external walls. The building was essentially rebuilt from the inside out, as well as being extended down and outwards.

A feature American Black Walnut staircase wraps itself up through the building, connecting the habitable spaces through its tree like presence. Half landings, internal openings and unusual apertures encourage the notion of creating internal courtyards of living spaces that are all strongly connected to one another. At the top of the house sits a roof top study for the client, over-looking the four storey central staircase. At the bottom of the staircase the tree like form wraps itself onto the ceiling of the basement rooms as the roots of the staircase in plywood ribbons, thus connecting this vertical building thematically as well as spatially.

The planning process was complex for this building due to the sensitive nature of the site (building of townscape merit), leading to months of negotiations with the local planning department eventually agreeing with a limit in place to the height of the extension. The brick cladding pays respect to the existing building, whilst be separated away from the historic fabric of the building by a glass slice.