residence
Surman Weston, 2023
15 Cicely Road, SE15 5HW
Surman Weston has completed its first self-build project, Peckham House, in South London. A resilient, characterful, and experiential family home, that reflects our personalities and architectural interests.
Peckham Rye
12, 136, 36, 37, 381, 436, 63, 197
The house has internal stairs to access the first floor, there are also two steps that divide the living room and the kitchen/dining room.
A brief tour of the house. The house is a quiet environment with no particularly unusual hazards.
This is the first self-built house project for architects Percy Weston and Tom Surman. The new house, monolithic in form and veiled in distinctive hit-and-miss brickwork, is delicate and crafted, referencing and playfully subverting the motifs of Peckham’s vibrant and eclectic urban neighborhood.
Spanning five years, it is their first self-initiated project where they served as client, architect, and contractor. This afforded them freedoms and broadened their experience beyond the parameters of a traditional architectural project, allowing Tom and Percy to set the brief, manage the budget, and control the build. This role enabled them to hone, play with, and improve the design along the way. Stepping into the role of the contractor has reignited a passion for making, a principal driver of their prize-winning architecture practice.
The house became a testbed for ideas, with influences ranging from the brutalist car park and Victorian terraces opposite to Moroccan riads, and includes unusual features such as a rooftop greenhouse and garden.
