Loop House is like a Lego box filled with colours and textures, rooms separated by portals, changing finishes and a flood of natural light. On the ground floor, we experimented with a new layout diagram that allows us to circle around the central core. The large openings between the rooms are not always aligned (like in the Mies Van der Rohe’s German houses), increasing the sense of surprise as we move through this narrative plan. We imagined large gatherings, long Scorsese-like camera movements through the space, and children playing hide and seek. We insulated and clad the extension in white tiles and opened it with corner sliding doors and a massive bifold window. The boundary between the garden and the house almost disappears; insects, smells, light and colours flow in and out.
“We took the same careful approach with the improvements to the house’s energy efficiency, aiming to lower the building’s lifetime emissions, with a special focus on reducing emissions from the building process. The green roof and projected rain garden will greatly add to the biodiversity of the site”
Dave
Loop House is like a Lego box filled with colours and textures, rooms separated by portals, changing finishes and a flood of natural light. On the ground floor, we experimented with a new layout diagram that allows us to circle around the central core. The large openings between the rooms are not always aligned (like in the Mies Van der Rohe’s German houses), increasing the sense of surprise as we move through this narrative plan. We imagined large gatherings, long Scorsese-like camera movements through the space, and children playing hide and seek. We insulated and clad the extension in white tiles and opened it with corner sliding doors and a massive bifold window. The boundary between the garden and the house almost disappears; insects, smells, light and colours flow in and out.
Loop House combines several interventions on an Edwardian detached house. The clients, a family of five with parents in the creative sector and three lively boys, required a space that reflected their joyful, expansive personalities.
The rear extension has been partially rebuilt, insulated and finished with white tiles, creating wide openings supported by slender columns. The roof has been re-covered with slate tiles, more akin to the original structure, and extended to accommodate two new bedrooms on the upper floor. The extensions are deliberately minimalist, offering a stark contrast to the original building’s detailed and colourful facade.
The main transformation on the ground floor is the creation of a central services core containing the stairs and cloakroom, around which a sequence of open spaces flows. These are marked by coloured thresholds and (sometimes) sliding doors, forming a continuous loop of living areas. A previously fragmented, dark, and series of small rooms is now a playful, bright, and spacious sequence of spaces, perfect for a game of tag or hide-and-seek, and providing endless variations for everyday life.
The original building albeit extended in 1985 was characterised by small and dark spaces with a central corridor. The extension was too shallow to work as a dining area and was fragmented by the original structure, which had a long, dark kitchen inside the outrigger. The ground floor’s design draws inspiration from the Krefeld houses by Mies van der Rohe, where large, staggered openings strike a balance between a traditional sense of space (the room) and the openness and asymmetry of modern sensitivity. We combined this typology with the opportunity of a continuous circular layout around a services core. The lived experience is dynamic, with both children and adults moving through the space in an almost filmic manner, continually discovering new ways to interact.
We took the same careful approach with the improvements to the house’s energy efficiency, aiming to lower the building’s lifetime emissions, with a special focus on reducing emissions from the building process. The green roof and projected rain garden will greatly add to the biodiversity of the site
Unagru
The original building albeit extended in 1985 was characterised by small and dark spaces with a central corridor. The extension was too shallow to work as a dining area and was fragmented by the original structure, which had a long, dark kitchen inside the outrigger. The ground floor’s design draws inspiration from the Krefeld houses by Mies van der Rohe, where large, staggered openings strike a balance between a traditional sense of space (the room) and the openness and asymmetry of modern sensitivity. We combined this typology with the opportunity of a continuous circular layout around a services core. The lived experience is dynamic, with both children and adults moving through the space in an almost filmic manner, continually discovering new ways to interact.
