Totteridge House

: Architectural Project Team- James Shelton and Gregory Phillips, Structural engineers- Heyne Tillett Steel, Andrew Beasley Photography, Mel Yates Photography

Totteridge is a striking new-build contemporary house in a north London conservation area. This substantial property is designed as a long-term family home, replacing an existing dated bungalow that the clients had lived in for years.

The house was designed to take advantage of the site’s North-South orientation. The front South side of the house faces the road and is made up of a series of solid volumes, with exaggerated deep window reveals. The rear, by contrast, is highly glazed with minimal structure beneath, allowing for uninterrupted views towards the surrounding green belt countryside. To ensure that the South sun, and quality of light, could be enjoyed in the winter, the design is focused on a single depth main family room, which takes advantage of light from both the front and rear. On the first floor, the windows are set deep into their reveals, so as not to overheat during the summer. The fabric of the building has been carefully considered for quality and longevity. A restrained palette of ‘raw’ materials was used, including water struck grey bricks and thick-cut sections of dark-stained cedar to clad the highly insulated lightweight walls between a structural steel frame. Rather than mimicking a traditional masonry load bearing construction – the steel frame is playfully expressed using heavy brickwork at first-floor level, and lightweight timber and glass below The resulting house, in contrast to the traditional neighbouring properties is unequivocally contemporary, yet references and reimagines the materials of the local area in a unique way.