The brief was to create new residential accommodation over the basement and ground floors of this 5-storey house in Spitalfields along with creating a large, fashion photographer’s studio infilling the land the rear of the original house. The previous owners had let the lower two floors fall into a derelict condition and, like many houses on the street, it required a radical reorganisation to bring it back to use.
The remodelled accommodation pivots around a new courtyard created in the centre of the traditional 4.5m-wide Victorian plan. The courtyard and adjacent glazed box create a point of connection between the new residential spaces on the ground and basement levels. They also form a physical separation between the living spaces created at the rear of the ground floor and the roof terrace above.