Kew II House

This project explores the crafts of building in the context of works to a so called ‘English style’ arts and crafts house.  The changes to the house involve internal re-organisation to add scale and dignity to the interiors and engage them directly with the garden. 

Spatially and programmatically we considered how the section could be manipulated to engage the interior of the house with the garden and also reinforce the distinctions between zones, amplifying the gradations of privacy.

Because the footprint of the house was not significantly augmented, our architectural motivation was to explore the ways that arts and crafts methods and aesthetics could be deployed to re-address the house with a ‘garden front’.  Specifically this involved harnessing the skills of the Tradesmen to create something poetic – looking at ways that we could utilise steel fabrication, carpentry, brickwork, cabinet making and stonework to make something expressive and evocative, something beautiful and useful.