Pablo Sanchez Lopez updates London house with timber porch
Local architect Pablo Sanchez Lopez focused on the idea of thresholds for this London house extension, creating a timber-framed porch at the entrance and a large pivot door leading to the garden.
Named House in Walthamstow, the Victorian terraced home had been subject to what Pablo Sanchez Lopez described as an "insensitive redevelopment" in the 1970s, leading to an awkward layout and incongruous PVC windows.
Aiming to improve the sense of connection between the home, the street and its rear garden, Lopez created a single, uninterrupted route through its ground floor, beginning with a timber-framed porch and ending in a large pivot door that opens onto a patio.
"Rather than reconstructing lost Victorian details, the project focuses on the idea of the threshold," Lopez told Dezeen.
"It rethinks the house's relationship with both the street and the garden, and how one moves from outside to inside," he added.
"Through contemporary design, the project explores physical and atmospheric transitions, interpreting the threshold as a spatial and experiential device."
House in Walthamstow's staircase, which had previously bisected the dining and living areas and blocked the axis to the garden, has been repositioned to the eastern edge of the plan, where it now faces the entrance.
This gave rise to a singular, large ground-floor space, beginning with a dining area overlooking the front yard through the new porch windows. This leads through a green-toned central kitchen into a skylit lounge created by expanding the rear of the home to the side.
On the first floor, the relocation of the staircase also allowed for a reconfigured two-bedroom layout, alongside a larger bathroom and a home office.
A full-height red curtain allows the dining room to be closed off from the entrance area and porch windows, while at the back of the home, the pivot door opens out onto a concrete-paved garden patio.
"This curtain acts as a 'soft hallway' between the entrance and living space," explained Lopez.
"Instead of building rigid partitions, the curtain's ephemeral nature allows merging or dividing the space, creating openness or intimacy, introducing light and views, or providing shading and privacy," he added.
The porch, staircase, window frames and exposed ceiling rafters were all made using the same red grandis timber used to clad the entrance porch, complemented on the ground floor by terrazzo flooring.
This is contrasted with additional green details that pick up on the tone of the kitchen, including a painted steel I-beam above the lounge and a datum of green tiles in the first-floor bathroom.
Other London extensions recently featured on Dezeen include the renovation of a home in Dulwich by ConForm Architects, which features a central, skylit void, and Nimtim Architects' playful transformation of a Victorian terrace house for Dezeen editor Tom Ravenscroft.
The photography is by Lorenzo Zandri.
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