London, United Kingdom
Set in a former brownfield corner of North London, The Mews House, Bouverie Mews designed by Spatial Affairs Bureau is an artist’s home featuring a unique design that melds professional with personal life.
The design scheme creates a hidden, miniature compound at the end of a narrow mews that backs onto the Abney Park Cemetery.
Nestled amongst Victorian light industrial and residential buildings, it includes two structures separated by a small courtyard garden.
The Mews House, Bouverie Mews was recently awarded a 2022 International Architecture Awards Honorable Mention by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
Home to an artist and her young family, the design creates a unique environment that melds both her domestic and professional lives – a protective domain into which clients, collaborators, and visitors are invited.
The first, taller, and narrower building, termed the ‘gate house’ shelters an open ground-floor sculpture display court and provides first-floor family accommodation, topped by a separate guest apartment on the second.
Situated deeper within the enclosed site and connected to the ‘gate house’ via a sky bridge, the main residence houses the ground floor and basement art studios with living spaces above.
At ground level, the site is entirely enclosed by adjoining properties (12 party-wall in total), but natural light floods each interior level, provided by either high-level clerestory windows or roof lights.
On upper levels, living and sleeping spaces extend along the east side, opening to the dramatic, heavily wooded expanses of the cemetery.
The opaque wall conditions of the north and west sides are super-insulated, reducing heat loss, while the exposed concrete frame provides thermal mass.
All glazing, which is largely custom structural glass, is triple-glazed, Low-E coated, and low iron.
The building’s exterior is comprised of a series of gently canted surfaces, connected by a seam that runs around the entire perimeter.
The Scottish larch cladding will slowly silver, blending with the surrounding context, at this powerful interface of urban and woodland.
Project: The Mews House, Bouverie Mews
Architects: Spatial Affairs Bureau
General Contractor: Barski Developments Ltd.
Client: Private
Photographers: Rory Gardiner and Peter Culley
