Hideaway House
A light touch and transformative reimagining of a unique detached home in East Dulwich.
The existing house is a detached villa placed in the middle of an urban block of Victorian terraces. Accessed via a narrow footpath - it is bordered in all sides by rear gardens. As a result it feels incredibly secluded for its location: quiet, calm and surrounded by plants, trees and wildlife.
The house was already bright and open but did not suit the requirements of the family with small unconnected rooms and not enough bedrooms. Nimtim’s briefing process identified a need for a new bedroom suite and other bedrooms that could accommodate the transition from childhood to adulthood plus allow visitors to stay comfortably and independently. The brief also included a new garden that gave more space for enjoying and occupying the external spaces rather than merely observing them. The intention was to celebrate the unique context of the house by reinforcing its connection to the surrounding gardens.
The proposals created a new bedroom suite in the roof space with sensitive and imperceptible adjustments to the existing roof pitch. The changes had no impact on any of the surrounding gardens and enhanced the coherence of the historic house.
Elsewhere window openings were enlarged and rationalised with simple high quality timber window frames bringing a consistency to the the external elevations that didn’t previously exist.
Inside, walls were removed and new connections and views created between internal and external spaces. Despite this open-ness, rooms could still be closed off to provide privacy and quietness when required. We introduced a palette of simple high quality materials that ran from inside to out creating a coherence through the whole home. In-built joinery: fabricated by the amazing Jacob Alexander Cabinet Makers, used a highly contrasted ply timber emphasising this consistency and texture.
For the garden, we collaborated with Andrew Bentham who delivered the garden following an initial concept scheme by nimtim architects. The garden introduces more space for seating and coming together with generous and rich planting placed in the middle of the space allowing the garden to make the most of the greenery already surrounding it.
