The owners approached AMA to reconsider the ground floor of this Victorian terrace house in Belsize Park. The client brief was to adapt the house into a contemporary, comfortable family house, improving the kitchen and living area with an extension on the rear.

AMA treated it as an exercise of essentiality: it was possible thanks to the affinity we established with the client, tuned on taste and ideas about the house spatiality.

From the window of the rear extension to the honey timber detail of the door, from the roof light to the projected window seat, the frames are used as compositional tools. The material is serving this geometrical choice, but is also used to mark the threshold between the living area and the kitchen, used as the storage area.

A central block, that divides the kitchen from the living and entrance area, is used to distribute the plan but also includes and hides the functional areas, like the powder room and the storage.

A marble top is framing the island: the choice of the dark colour on the bespoke kitchen doors is used to highlight the volumes, while the lighter taupe highlights its symmetry, being applied on the shorter units.

The crittal doors are used as a permeable frame between the living and the family / TV area, while the discrete frame of the door overlooking the rear garden is almost invisible, in order to read the garden from inside as a natural, changeable painting.


 

RODERICK ROAD



Location: Belsize Park, London, UK
Year: Completed 2022
Photographer: Henry Woide