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“For me, this house is a home,” begins Amanda Levete as she tours videographer Emile Rafael through her North London residence. “It’s all it is, but home is incredibly important because of all that it means to you.”
British architect Amanda Levete began her career working with Richard Rogers before heading Future Systems alongside her former husband, the late Jan Kaplický. In 2009, Levete founded her own architectural practice AL_A, which has worked on projects such as the the EDP Foundation Cultural Centre in Lisbon and the 2015 MPavilion in Melbourne. AL_A is currently designing a mosque for Abu Dhabi’s World Trade Center and remodeling Paris’ Galeries Lafayette department store.
Levete’s house features a traditional brick façade and Victorian layout, behind which the visitor finds a modern extension, built over the site of a former dress factory. Above all, the architecture aims to offer a space for the eye and the mind to rest. “The magic of the moment as you come in through a very modest Georgian terrace house, you don’t have any sense of what is behind, and then you come down the stairs, and suddenly there’s this light and the volume opens up, and it’s really very special.”
https://vimeo.com/178160389
As the architect for the project and half of the client — the other half being her husband Ben Evans — Levete approached the space as an expression of the couple’s vision for a home. “It was fabulous to make something that really expresses your dreams for family life.”
Manipulating and animating daylight through the architecture of the space, Levete brings movement and emotion to the rooms of the house. She prioritizes curves and rounded corners in both the structure and the furniture in the home. “To have a softness in the lines really helps you to feel settled,” she explains.
Some of the design elements found in the home and highlighted in Rafael’s film include a 20-seat custom-made table, reflective of the couple’s affinity for hosting dinners with friends and colleagues, as well as a built-in fireplace that pierces through the white wall of the living room as a reference to the work of Spatialist artist Lucio Fontana and his slashed canvases, favorites of Levete.
“Ben and I have always wanted a room just for books,” says Levete, showing Rafael the couple’s library. “To be surrounded by the books that you grew up with, books that mean something to you, books that have inspired you, it’s like your history is there in a room.”
Levete’s design for her home relies on a lack of color and other visual distraction. Instead, touches of color are brought in by some pieces of furniture like the orange sofa, the books and other objects on the shelves, flowers and even from the people inhabiting or visiting the space.
“You don’t need a lot of color to make something feel warm,” explains Levete. “We suffer from image overload for sure, but I think this image overload actually devalues the meaning of things.”
Finally, Levete talks of her favorite space in the house — an intimate one — the bathroom. Bathing in an atmospherical light produced by the icy blue-green color on the walls, the room allows for a full immersion into calm and peace, according to the designer. Skylit and uncluttered, the room once again reflects the vision for a perfectly tailored space that has the ability to bring a particular sensation to its user and inhabitant.
“When I come home after a stress day it’s just wonderful to lie in the bath and look up at the sky,” concludes Levet. “It’s my refuge.”
All images are from the NOWNESS video. For more Architizer coverage of NOWNESS’s “In Residence” series, make sure to check out our features on the homes of Ricardo Bofill and Xavier Corbero.
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