Addition and Renovation to a Victorian Family House

A Victorian house is doubled in plan on the ground floor to make a square plan with a steel column placed close to its centre as the only hint to the support of a first floor return above. There is a surprising intensity and mystery to this deep domestic renovation - not just in the exquisite craft demonstrated but also in the layered references that come to mind. At once one is reminded of Jorn Utzon’s heavenly cloud afloat in Bagsvaerd Church and at another turn of Alvaro Siza’s swelling walls at Santa Maria at Marco de Canaveses. Windows are screened or obstructed to modulate light through an abundant array of interstitial spaces made at edges, junctions and interfaces. The house reveals itself as a series of delightfully constructed layers, be it a roof-lit chimney/seat/shelf or a baffled barrel-vaulted cloud that reflects light. There is a yearning for more than just domestic space here but something ephemeral, something mysterious and beautifully complex.