housing
David Kohn Architects, 2024
8 Smart's Place, Covent Garden, WC2B 5LW
Located in the Seven Dials Conservation Area, David Kohn Architects' tiered rooftop extension creates a new family home that responds to the richness of its historic context, the surrounding rooflines, and the robustness of the existing brick warehouse building beneath. Please note: No photography allowed.
Covent Garden, Holborn
A passenger lift provides step free access to the apartment.
The apartment is located on Smart's Place in Holborn, within a dense network of narrow streets and blind alleys lined with mainly Victorian buildings, and situated within the Seven Dials Conservation Area. David Kohn Architects’ tiered extension responds to the richness of the surrounding roof lines, and the robust of the existing commercial building beneath.
Each storey steps back to reflect changing scales from multi-storey offices to domestic almshouses, with bayed facades that further engage with the architectural language of their surroundings while breaking up the massing of the extension. This respectful design approach clearly distinguishes old from new, and allows the subsidiary relationship of the new apartment to its host to be understood. Inside, the series of step-backs and bays creates rooms with unique qualities, as well as various views, light and spaces.
The design features a series of outdoor private terraces on each tier of the apartment, that when planted, will create a luxuriant green foil for the development in a Babylonian-style hanging garden.
Drop in / Guided tour
community/cultural, library, museum, art in the public realm, concert/performance space, education
Grade II-listed Georgian domestic building c.1760, formerly part of Bedford Estate. Interior refurbished 1924-5 to form lecture hall (restored 2014), library, bookshop and offices. Oak woodwork and green Doulton tiles line the staircase.
Unknown, 1760
Drop in / Guided tour
community/cultural, historical house, concert/performance space, event
The independent cultural centre Pushkin House will contribute to this year's Open House Festival through a programme of events and community initiatives at its Grade-II listed building in Bloomsbury Square.
Henry Flitcroft, 1744
