Tour a Fulham house by Bureau de Change in London

Fulham house, a leafy garden view of brick structure — (Image credit: Gilbert McCarragher)

A Fulham house has been completely rethought through an extension and detailed renovation by Shoreditch-based architecture studio Bureau de Change. The project, set in leafy West London, has been carefully sculpted – both physically and symbolically – to create a spatial experience that both improves the owners' life and the routes through their home and its connection to the outdoors – namely the property's green, rear garden.

Fulham Palace house, a leafy garden view of brick structure

Discover this Fulham house by Bureau de Change

A textured, sculptural rear addition and the way it flows into the verdant outdoors through extensive glazing sit at the heart of the residential reimagining. The extension was designed using a series of pre-fabricated moulding details which were found 'in a historical joinery catalogue from a local craftsman that operated in the area during the Victorian times,' the architects explain. This not only brings the home to the 21st century but also links it back to the region's history and rich craftsmanship.

What would have typically been period, three-dimensional mouldings have now been re-interpreted using brick. 'The pattern that emerged by rotating or mirroring the bricks created a sense of movement and texture visible from every angle,' says studio co-founder Katerina Dionysopoulou, who leads the practice with business partner and co-founder Billy Mavropoulos. This tactile skin defines the home's materiality and creates a dialogue with the richly planted garden beyond.

Meanwhile, inside, the interior has been refreshed, using colour to define specific paths within. A dark blue entrance, illuminated with a dramatic double-height void above, cutting through the upper level, leads to a lighter, desaturated kitchen. Bespoke stone surfaces and a central island underline the room's spatial generosity. An even lighter dining area off the main kitchen space completes the trajectory towards the sunlight and the outdoors.

Mavropoulos explains: 'We wanted to complement the original ornate features of the house with sculptural and material surprises in each space. The hard lines and metallic finish of the central volume that binds the living spaces together are softened by the surrounding Victorian ceilings enrichments, warm flooring materials and subtle reflections of the garden.'

Alongside these modern interventions, historic elements have been carefully restored - from the Victorian tiling and stained glass windows to elaborate ceiling mouldings and timber floor boards throughout; making this a truly contemporary residential refresh.

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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).