Melbourne
Grove
Location | East Dulwich, London
Scale | 1,800 sq.ft.
Bed / bath | 4 / 3
Completed | 2023
Photography | Chris Wharton
A period semi bought out of probate, largely unmodernised and in terrible condition. It was our director's home at the time, which made it the place we tested our own thinking, a house to bring back properly and learn from. What emerged keeps its traditional presence at the front and opens into something wholly contemporary at the rear. We are proud of it because every decision here was one we were willing to live with ourselves.
| THE BRIEF |
A period home rebuilt around light and openness, on a plot that gives away very little.
Three questions set the agenda. How far could a modest plot be made to feel genuinely generous. How much daylight could a London semi actually hold, not at one moment but across a whole day and a whole year. And how should new work speak to restored period rooms without either one apologising for the other. Everything that follows on this page is an answer to one of those three.
| THE RIGHT WRECK |
Our director was not looking for a house in good condition.
It came out of probate, largely unmodernised for decades, with structural problems and fire damage. For most buyers that was a reason to walk away. For us it was the appeal, the blank canvas needed to strip a period house back to its bones. A house in that state lets you see exactly how it was built, test how it should properly be repaired, and rebuild rather than work around what previous owners left behind.
| TOP TO BOTTOM |
One idea, carried up three storeys.
The contemporary language does not stop at the ground floor. We rebuilt the first floor outrigger with the same cantilevered glass corner, then clad the two-level loft in zinc to match. Seen from the garden, the rear reads as a single considered idea rather than a stack of separate additions. Coherence, top to bottom, was the point.
| OLD MEETS NEW |
We did not modernise the whole house.
The rear is unapologetically contemporary, but the front rooms were restored, not replaced. We brought back the traditional detail and answered it with bold colour, keeping the original proportions and adjusting the plan only where it improved the flow. The result is a house with two characters that belong together, period calm at the street, open and modern behind.
