Work­ing with cre­ative clients, the design approach is informed by their ini­tial belief that beneath its pre­vi­ous ren­o­va­tions the building’s indus­tri­al her­itage is quite unique. The project’s pri­ma­ry objec­tive is to realise its exist­ing poten­tial rather than replace it with some­thing entire­ly new.

The design is first and fore­most a process of reduc­tion to allow the char­ac­ter of the orig­i­nal build­ing to be the pri­ma­ry fea­ture. A key com­po­nent of this is to retain and reveal the mason­ry con­struc­tion giv­ing the home an unde­ni­able ware­house feel. Many orig­i­nal details such as arched doors and fire­places are main­tained in work­ing order. Where pos­si­ble the imper­fec­tion of the brick walls are cel­e­brat­ed as an indi­ca­tion of their his­to­ry. At a few points glaz­ing is used to fill gaps in the mason­ry to clear­ly delin­eate what is orig­i­nal and what is new. At the ground lev­el, the orig­i­nal tim­ber ceil­ings are also exposed.

As a bal­ance to the larg­er archi­tec­tur­al spaces, the liv­ing spaces are much more inti­mate, char­ac­terised by sub­tle colours, tex­ture and plush soft fur­nish­ings. Rough sawn tim­ber lines the walls and recy­cled tim­ber cre­ates join­ery adding warmth. Strong black detail­ing in the new areas cre­ate a dis­tinct­ly mod­ern con­trast to the brick­work of the orig­i­nal build­ing while link­ing to the indus­tri­al character.

This project features Ross Gardam’s Nebulae 12 Chandelier in Textured Black Glass & Black Anodised Aluminium.

Splinter Society Architects
splintersociety.com