Morgan House & Regency Mews, Camden London

London, United Kingdom

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Morgan House & Regency Mews, Camden London

London, United Kingdom

Firm

Stride Treglown

Type

Residential › Apartment

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2015

Photos

KSA (3)

This is a refurbishment of an existing two-storey 4 metre wide warehouse into two residential apartments. There was already an existing planning permission, however, it is to the developer’s credit - Taylor Wimpey Central London - that a design competition was held to maximise the architectural potential of the site.

Through this opportunity, Stride Treglown were chosen to develop their ideas which
explored bringing space and light into the narrow constrained building.

The warehouse fronts onto Bonny Street with a Victorian façade that forms part of
a period street located in a conservation area. The LPA required the retention of the
exiting facade and restricted any increase in the buildings height, they also required
the building to be Lifetime Homes compliant.

Although the site and existing building were very constrained, it did have generous existing floor to floor heights, and this allowed an extra floor to be added within the existing building envelop. This allowed us to pull the proposed floors back from the street so that the new building started several metres back from the existing retained
facade. This resulting courtyard creating a dramatic entrance to the building that
highlights the new build elements which appear to have been dropped in-between
the existing brick walls.

The resultant courtyard highlights the new build elements which appear to have
been dropped in between the existing brick walls. Materials were chosen to
deliberately offset and contrast between old and new. The glass, steel and timber
elements cantilevered into the space create a clear distinction between the existing and new fabric preserving the light industrial character of the structure which was the original design intent. Brick walls were repaired and reinforced with steel which then became the loadbearing structure for the new floors and barrel shaped roof.

The extra storey allowed the design team to carve away floor plates resulting in
a dramatic double height living room overlooked by a study. This highlights how
innovative architectural design can transform and create space. The inclusion
of gentle curves throughout give a sense of undulating space, concealing the
narrowness of the warehouse. This geometry culminates with a spiral staircase
lit by generous circular rooflight which becomes a centrepiece and allows light
deep into the plan.

An earlier scheme provided the upper level apartment with a large terrace but left
the lower apartment with no amenity space. This was addressed by splitting the
large terrace into two, with access from the lower apartment achieved by external
staircase. This terrace was lowered to reduce the length of the stairs making the
terrace more accessible it also reduced the ceiling height above the kitchen and
entrance area and thus highlighted the generous existing ceiling height over the
dining and living room area.

Budget constraints meant the project team had to distil the designs into key
features, realise those to the required high standard and be able to compromise
on smaller details such as some of the bespoke built in furniture items. However
the result of this rigorous exercise is the excellent level of finish applied to
spectacular architectural features.

During the marketing exercise the two apartments were given names, the lower
ground floor apartment was called Regency Mews, and the upper apartment,
planned on two levels was called Morgan House.