residence
Paper House Project, 2024
Greenview House, Milton Grove, N16 8QX
Greenview House is a contemporary, low-energy home that prioritises thermal performance, spatial quality, and occupant comfort. The design of the house is underpinned by a commitment to offset the environmental impact of its construction. A fabric-first approach, supported by green technologies, keeps energy use low and significantly reduces the building’s long-term operational carbon footprint.
Highbury & Islington, Manor House
Canonbury, Dalston Junction, Dalston (Kingsland)
The house is arranged across three levels with open staircases that do not currently have installed handrails.
10:00–17:00
The house has been conceived as a series of interconnected double-height spaces with front and rear lightwells creating extended sightlines and visual connections between levels. At ground floor, a 3m living green wall forms the backdrop to the kitchen-dining area, with a discreet first-floor terrace ensuring access to outdoor space from every habitable room, whilst a large format picture window provides framed views onto Butterfield Green.
When viewed from Butterfield Green, the dwelling sits elevated like a tree house over the boundary wall, with the blackened timber cladding providing a sympathetic backdrop to the mature trees. Internally, oak is used throughout for floor finishes, stairs and carpentry items, complimented by a reduced palette of harder materials, including galvanised steel and polished concrete.
Building on a tight backland site, particularly one with limited vehicle access, presented a number of logistical and structural challenges.
Traditional construction methods involving steel or masonry would have been difficult and costly to execute under such constraints. Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) offered a highly efficient, practical, and sustainable solution.
Greenview House and the adjoining property, Butterfied House, were constructed at the same. Although each dwelling is unique in its design (footprint, massing and envelope), both houses have utilised CLT to form the above ground structures. Building in this way minimised disruption and reduced build-times with both superstructres errected in less than five days.
While the CLT is not exposed as a visual or architectural feature, it contributes to a quieter, more thermally balanced environment, reducing both external noise and temperature fluctuations.
Greenview House is a contemporary, low-energy home that prioritises thermal performance, spatial quality, and occupant comfort. It is an exemplar for sustainable infill development and low-carbon urbanism; the project demonstrates how architectural ambition and environmental responsibility can be integrated holistically.
The design of the house is underpinned by a commitment to offset the environmental impact of its construction. By adopting a fabric-first approach, supported by a range of green technologies, day-to-day energy use is kept to a minimum, significantly reducing the long term operational carbon footprint of the building.
●Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) system ensures a constant flow of fresh air while retaining warmth.
●An air source heat pump replaces conventional heating systems, efficiently drawing warmth from the outside air.
●Solar panels contribute to on-site renewable energy generation and feed back into the grid.
●A prefabricated CLT superstructure, triple-glazed windows and a highly insulated, airtight envelope.
