Greater London, United Kingdom –
Built Area: 130.0 m2
Year Built: 2017
Photographs:
Black Ridge House is an extension project to an existing Victorian home. Its rooflines are reminiscent of early-era Warner houses common in the neighbourhood. It features a gabled roof covered in Kebony. The material is a durable and sustainable alternative to tropical hardwood. The wood was engineered to give it a beautiful black finish.
The design of the extension provides a stunning contrast to the Victorian brickwork. This creates a distinct separation between the old and the new. The house celebrates nature through the use of timber and the utilization of natural processes.
The project includes a living area, dining room, and kitchen on the ground floor. A skylit bathroom and the new master bedroom are found at the upper floor. Large glass doors allow plenty of natural light into the house. These doors also create a generous indoor-outdoor connection.
The architects of Black Ridge House included several sustainable features into the design. A green roof, underfloor heating, and airtight details keep energy demands to a minimum.
Notes from the Architect:
The Black Ridge house is an extension to an existing 3-bedroom Victorian terraced house forming part of the Warner Estate in Walthamstow. The project creates a light filled spacious extension with an open plan kitchen, dining, living area at ground floor. There is a new master bedroom and skylit bathroom in the first-floor rear extension and a green sedum roof blanket.
The home incorporates many energy saving features including a high degree of insulation, robust airtight detailing, under floor heating in the extension, extensive skylights and highly insulated doubled glazed metal windows. The design of the extension was inspired by the roof lines and rhythm of the early Warner houses.
The building form responded to site constraints, with the roof line being respectful to the neighbouring properties.
The extension forms a contrast to the Victorian brickwork so that the two elements of the house are distinct and a separate visual language is used. Our design embraces the philosophy of Biophilic design principles, addressing our innate attraction to nature and natural processes. By constructing the extension out of a natural product whose surface is formed by a natural process – we celebrate nature. The design also includes ideas of wabi-sabi – a world view that is based on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. Beauty is seen as being “imperfect, impermanent and incomplete”.
The Shou Sugi Ban technique of burning is used on wood with differing age, water and sap content and the results are not always controlled – this process allows for a richness of texture, colour and grain which is at once beautiful and spontaneous. Thinner timber cladding panel on the first floor and a charred black Shou Sugi Ban panelled cladding panel with a wide format on the ground floor breaks up the massing and differentiates between the two levels giving a different sense of scale and detail.
The kitchen island utilises a live edge on the counter top giving a sense of a hand-crafted approach to the kitchen within a modern interior. As well as natural oak for the worktop and cupboard doors. The sliding timber door was made from reclaimed timber panels, paired with exposed black steel track further creates a modern industrial feel.
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