Shacklewell Lane E8
Our clients, a musician and producer and a yoga teacher, bought a 19th century dairy in Dalston 20 years ago, and have been living and working there in a variety of creative ways since. The property has been used as a music recording studio, a furniture shop and as a house, and is now home to the couple and their two young children. Our work consists of two phases of construction. Phase 1 will entail the renovation of the rear building, the old dairy and milking parlour, creating a glazed link corridor between this structure and the house facing the street. Phase 2 will involve the creation of a new roof-top bedroom on top of the house itself. The project involves some creative demolition of a some poor quality lean-to structures which leads to the revelation of a series of courtyards on the site. The idea is to paint these exuberant and joyful colours, emphasbegaising the room-like character of the courts and the ambiguous spatial thresholds that result from a series of spaces that are inter-connected when open to each other in the summer months. It is also very obviously a homage to the incredibly beautiful and inspiring architecture of Luis Barragan in Mexico City. Barragan carved out a series of sensual and secretive courtyards within the hinterland of quite unprepossessing exteriors. We aim too for an architecture of decorum, surprise and delight. Construction began at the end of 2022 and completion is expected early 2024.
