Into the woods: Carmody Groarke designs a brick marvel in North London
Award-winning London-based architectural practice Carmody Groarke has just completed the practice’s very first ground-up standalone residential scheme – a single-family house on the northern edge of Highgate Wood. Aiming to create something modern that would at the same time celebrate the nearby woods, the architects worked on this landmark project primarily based on the site’s context, views and orientation.
‘In a suburb of typical Edwardian detached houses, a new home of different character was always going to be treated with suspicion,’ say the architects. ‘The form of the house was carefully composed to respond to the proportions of other houses on the street, and brick was chosen as the dominant material to give it coherence and a feeling of longevity within its neighbourhood.’
The new detached building maintains a strong relationship with its context through generous openings, both towards the rear garden and the nearby trees, as well as the sleepy residential street at the front. Formed as a sculptural series of stacked rectangular boxes, which delicately twist and turn, adjusting their direction towards the optimum vistas, the structure is a happy balance between boldness and restraint.
Carefully set back from the street, the elegant brick volumes create coherence and continuity between the project and its urban surroundings. By complementing its modern form with a finely tuned material palette of exposed, dark, bespoke and handmade Petersen bricks, rich brown smoked oak and off-white travertine floor, the architects ensured a powerful, yet discreet result.
A traditional internal division – fluid, open-plan public spaces on the ground floor and a more conventional layout of four bedrooms and other private areas upstairs – is broken by the house’s centrepiece: a striking triple-height grand hall at the floorplan’s heart. This gesture cunningly separates the house into two wings and turns the visitor’s attention instantly to the outdoors, through a floor-to-ceiling window towards the rear of the site. On the first floor, this hall is lined with an internal balcony that hosts a library and links the building’s two flanking sides. There is a distinct lack of corridors throughout, with circulation served instead by generous halls and in-between areas that promote a sense of comfort and space.
A dark lap pool is placed on one end of the ground level, faced with large glazed sliding doors. These allow for uninterrupted views of the carefully manicured garden and the woods beyond, leaving this north London home wanting for nothing, even compared to the most idyllic countryside location.
More visuals and the photoshoot at Highgate Wood House can be found in the September 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*210)
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Carmody Groarke website
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
-
Serpentine Pavilion 2024 by Mass Studies is underway
The Serpentine Pavilion 2024 in London, designed by Minsuk Cho and Mass Studies, will feature a specially commissioned soundscape and 'The Library of Unread Books'
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
’It was a mindset’: Boy’s Own revives the revolutionary acid house fanzine as a clothing label
Launching during Photo London 2024, Boy’s Own is a new clothing line featuring graphics from the 1986-founded DIY fanzine that documented the UK’s acid house revolution. Here, one of its founders, Cymon Eckel, tells Ben Perdue the story behind the new project
By Ben Perdue Published
-
Van Cleef & Arpels' immersive London exhibition takes visitors inside the watchmaking world
Van Cleef & Arpels’ exhibition, ‘Poetry of Time’, at South Kensington’s Cromwell Place gallery, traces the early days of the maison
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Serpentine Pavilion 2024 by Mass Studies is underway
The Serpentine Pavilion 2024 in London, designed by Minsuk Cho and Mass Studies, will feature a specially commissioned soundscape and 'The Library of Unread Books'
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
RIBA’s ‘Raise the Roof’ show is a deep dive into the history of its London HQ
With its ‘Raise the Roof: Building for Change’ exhibition, the RIBA explores themes including gender, ethnicity, race, and imperialism embedded within its own historic headquarters
By Shawn Adams Published
-
2024 RIBA Gold Medal recipient Lesley Lokko: ‘To be valued, understood and seen by your peers is rare’
Lesley Lokko receives the 2024 RIBA Gold Medal in a dedicated celebration in London, and talks to us about taking stock after a busy few years, and planning for the future
By Ellie Stathaki Last updated
-
The Emory, RSHP’s first luxury hotel in London, is a rising star
New London hotel The Emory presents the perfect showcase of RSHP’s signature functionalist style and hospitality group Maybourne’s elevated luxury
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Inside Harry Handelsman's Manhattan Loft Gardens penthouse in London
Manhattan Loft Corporation CEO Harry Handelsman's Manhattan Loft Gardens penthouse in London goes on the market for £17.5m
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Architects collaborate on geometric extension to radically re-shape a London house
Mediterranean influences, earthy tones and quirky angles abound in this geometric extension and the soaring living spaces of this reconfigured Victorian townhouse
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
London’s Reciprocal House complements an existing Norman Foster extension
Reciprocal House by Gianni Botsford replaces a north London Victorian structure, preserving its early Norman Foster extension and bringing the whole to the 21st century
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Stephen Friedman Gallery by David Kohn is infused with subtly playful elegance
Stephen Friedman Gallery gets a new home by David Kohn in London, filled with elegant details and colourful accents
By Ellie Stathaki Published