This clever Camden house renovation brings light, space and zen

This Camden house renovation by EBBA architects transforms a traditional north London terraced property, creating light and space for contemporary living, thanks to a dramatic but sensitively designed double-height extension.

Tour EBBA’s Camden house renovation

The home had been unmodernised since the clients moved in 15 years previously, and the living space was fragmented, with limited views of the garden. The architects, ‘concentrated on connecting the different pockets of space in the house to create a more cohesive living area, while opening up the rear of the building to embrace the available natural light’, state the team.

They also created a new home office space that links to the garden, in a further nod to contemporary functionality.

The full-width, double-height rear extension takes its inspiration from the metalwork of balconies common to the local vernacular, Victorian housing stock. The new addition – slotting in neatly between two existing structures – connects two levels of the interior, flooding the house with light, and provides an ever-present link to the outdoors. Large glazed doors open onto a brick-lined terrace and the leafy garden beyond.

Inside, bespoke joinery brings a sense of warmth, craft and continuity throughout the interior, from a vast kitchen island to custom-created bedroom furniture pieces. With sustainable architecture principles in mind, the extensive use of timber combines with off-white clay floor tiles and limestone accents for a ‘quiet, sustainable material palette’, note the architects.

In the master ensuite, a Japanese-style wooden tub adds to the general sense of zen, along with softly textured clay walls.

EBBA – whose portfolio spans from residential design to exhibitions, set design, retail and education projects – prides itself on ‘making spaces that reflect particular poetic and material qualities that can carry meaning and can have a direct emotional effect on the users’, state the architects. This renovation exudes a sense of subtlety and understatement, while dramatically enhancing the living space and connection to the outdoors of a traditional London terrace.

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