The car repair workshop purchased by our clients consisted of a two storey brick coach house, with garage space either side under rudimentary roofing. The potential existed to convert the coach house to a two bedroom residence and by removing the rudimentary roofs, provide an entrance courtyard on one side and a secluded walled garden on the other. The first floor east side of the coach house had no windows to take advantage of the view towards Thomas Archer's St Paul's church and Greenwich in the distance.
To take advantage of these views the living room and kitchen are placed on the first floor. The bedrooms on the ground floor open onto the private walled garden. Windows on the west side of the coach house facing the entrance courtyard were bricked up so that the living space is not overlooked.
The entire east wall of the coach house was removed, to be replaced with double-glazed sliding glass doors. These doors, both on ground and first floor level, can be slid to one side to open up the entire internal space to the garden. In the separate studio building the glass doors can also slide to a different position in the garden, so that the studio can become part of the garden, further confusing the distinction between inside and outside. The garden, an outdoor room, then becomes an extension of the internal living space, and the generator of the design.
Our interest was to explore the possibilities of a two storey garden with vistas and views on each level within the existing walls, so that the living room could connect to a roof terrace above the external studio. Free-standing concrete walls define the spaces within the garden and support the steel beams necessary to brace the existing walls and support the sliding windows.
An entrance axis links the courtyard through the house and into the walled garden. This is reinforced by a linear pond and a new door in the walled garden, which terminates the axis and can be used as a separate entrance for the garden studio. It is intended in future that at first floor level a bridge will connect the dining area to the roof terrace in the garden. A small double-height void in the entrance hall, spanned by a glass bench, draws attention upwards to the main living space.
Floors at ground level are raw concrete, a smooth version of the gravel in the garden. Internal walls are white plaster, kitchen stainless steel and details suppressed. All doors, both internal and external, including external shutters are sliding. The project was completed in Spring 1996 at a cost of around £80,000.00.