Extension + Refurbishment

The house is an Edwardian 4 bed that has been refurbished and extended to suit contemporary living. It showcases what our practice is currently interested in - unique, natural + sustainable materials, calming and reflective spaces with a connection to nature, and unexpected spaces in a domestic environment. There are several features to explore; a contemporary kitchen within a vaulted timber shingle clad extension (with a large picture window, restaurant style bench seating and bold Sicilian marble), the existing house with retained original features, and a hidden sunken travertine clad bathroom that faces a private micro courtyard with plants.

Artist Studio

The building's form and articulation are entirely in response to its function as an artist's studio. The roof is pitched to allow for north light, and the wall space is maximised for artworks. There is one single window over the large butler sink where artwork would not have been able to be hung in any case. The interior has been envisaged as a ‘white box’, providing robust and durable working surfaces that are easily repainted.

Sustainability

The ambition for the studio (and extension) was to construct it using the latest sustainable materials and technologies. Rather than pour concrete which is environmentally problematic, screw piles were used for the foundations, and the walls, roof and floor structure are built from timber frame. Instead of specifying standard petrochemical insulation that is widely available for the studio’s thermal envelope, the walls and roof were specified to be entirely breathable, using insulation made from both wood fibre and recycled denim from the fashion industry. There were also no plastic waterproofing membranes used in the build.

Artwork

Schindel Studio is the workspace of the landscape painter Amelia Humber. Amelia's oil paintings strive to relay the atmosphere and emotion of the landscape through a personal and momentary experience. They contain the ideas of capturing those immediate feelings of drama in a continuously changing landscape, and her work will be on display in the studio.

Timber Shingles

Utilising shingles to clad the walls and roof was influenced by Archer + Braun’s co-founder Sarah Braun's exposure to the architectural vernacular of rural villages in the Alps. The shingles, a low carbon and sustainable product, were sourced from an artisan producer in Bavaria that produces shingles that are hand split and made from older larch ’shingle’ trees, creating a finish to the timber that exposes the grain and is rich in variety and texture. When experimenting with different finishes, the black matt finish eventually chosen emphasises the variation present in the surface of each shingle, and gave a typically rustic material a contemporary and unifying quality.