Featured Project: Shandon

This is the first in a series of posts which will highlight projects that we think can serve as inspiration to the homeowner considering an extension. 

Location: London

Completed: 2003

Cost: £137,000

Architect: studio octopi

This is a beautiful modern kitchen/dining extension which reminds us of some of the great minimalist designs of John Pawson.  It successfully blurs the boundary between the ground floor and the garden of this traditional terraced house. The interior and exterior are treated as a continuous space, a single room formed in plan by three equal zones that balance and unify the ground floor. In order to achieve this the division between the house and the garden is made indistinct by a minimally framed sliding door that allows natural light to stream back deep inside the building. Beneath it the sandstone kitchen floor extends seamlessly outwards to form a terrace between the rear elevation and the timber deck at the end of the garden.

What sets us in mind of Pawson is the clever use of the kitchen units and countertop. They form a block that stretches out through the rear elevation, the exposed section of storage echoing the proportions of the kitchen island. These dimensions are repeated once more, as a negative in the void of the roof-light, positioned in parallel with the kitchen island to allow light to fall in on the internal dining area.  This is simply beautiful.