Project Description. Refurbishment

Refurbishment

The two-story house had a major structural fault with the roof and upper floor.

The house was gutted in 2016 with loft and rear ground floor extensions added.

Already a fan of Luis Barragán's architecture, my client had a series of stud wall panels inserted in the ground floor area between the front living and rear dining/kitchen areas as an experiment to discover if this homage would work at a small scale in a classic Victorian/Edwardian house in the ever problematic middle ground floor area when a full-width rear extension is added.

After moving into the house in 2017 he and his partner’s focus was diverted to expanding a new retail business they had started in Walthamstow.

After discovering I was also an admirer of Barragán and had visited some of his residential work in Mexico City, where I was born and educated, he asked me to get involved in completing the interior in 2025.

Interior design

Like almost any other creative, I enjoy and indulge in grand designs but I believe the world has forgotten that houses are unique, mysterious and deeply personal spaces.
I believe in the right to live in dignified and beautiful spaces and that it should be accessible to everyone.

My aim with this project was to provide a big impact on a small/accessible budget.

I hope my design for this house demonstrates that this is achievable.
In our initial discussions, we developed the brief for the design project. With my client, we found we had clear common ground in our design ethos; either by taste or culture, we both embrace examples of modernism without the barren sterility that often accompanies it.

In our initial discussions, we developed the brief for the design project. My client and I found we had clear common ground in our design ethos, either by taste or culture. We both embrace examples of modernism without the barren sterility that often accompanies it.

Different from European Modernism, the movement in Mexico integrated that strict rationality and aim for the future with a study of traditional architecture and culture.

That is why the aesthetic language of Luis Barragán kept calling us and became the guide for what we wanted to create.

A house full of colour, warmth, and creativity that was home for a life of collected memories.

MEMORY

One requirement was to accommodate the many items he and his partner collected over their retail careers, inherited objects from one or many lifetimes ago, purchased on many trips and created by the hands of his partner, a great ceramist.
This was a unique opportunity to create different spaces where these items can be displayed in an everchanging rotation, a house for contemplation.

FAR AWAY

Added was his ask that I deliver a ‘look and feel’ that reminded him that there was a world beyond England.
My answer was colour and texture. Through trial and error, we found the perfect tones and placements for this to work together and bring warmth and vida to the space.

Darkness, promises of yellow bright light, colour and reflections that fluctuate by the minute, recorrido, pink, rain, green, plants, blue, so much blue, surprises.

A major recent influence on him was a visit to the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. A gallery-cum-museum whose rooms combine art with objects, often mundane but beautiful. All without a viewing guide or instructions on how to interpret them.

They are there for the visitor to make something of them individually and as a whole. A hinge, bolt or door key would be displayed next to a chair, ceramic piece or jewellery, which in turn was placed next to a sculpture or painting, with each room providing the spatial parameter.

Inspiring us to make this home somewhere where objects trigger thoughts, where light triggers changes to tone & form and where impressions are in perpetual flux.

Amongst these objects, we have paintings, prints and other works of art that capture and reflect the diversity of cultures present in East London. A world beyond England.

BARRAGÁN

When thinking about Barragán people tend to picture thick walls of bright colours under the bright Mexican sun. Yes, that is Barragán, but he is also shadows, privacy, and natural materials; he strips down a house to its most vital needs. The needs of those who live in it.

That understanding, the memories that stayed with me after visiting his domestic projects and the physical need for colour, was my inspiration.

I took advantage of the existing structure my client had already experimented with, a sequence of pillars that Barragán is so well known for. Previously used to solve more practical work/domestic related needs, now it could be the heart of the house and be used to materialise a well-earned life dedicated to the pleasures of contemplation, reading and thinking.

Through and through a challenge of rhythm, bold, vivid colours, pared-back design, objects, surprises. But not too many.

“En proporción alarmante han desaparecido en las publicaciones dedicadas a la arquitectura las palabras belleza, inspiración, magia, sortilegio, encantamiento y también las de serenidad, silencio, intimidad y asombro. Todas ellas han encontrado amorosa acogida en mi alma, y si estoy lejos de pretender haberles hecho plena justicia en mi obra, no por eso han dejado de ser mi faro.” Luis Barragan, 1980.

Visitors

I will be present on the days the house is open.
And will be happy to discuss the project, Barragán and answer any questions visitors may have.
The house will be open from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Visitors will be asked to remove their shoes when entering the house.