Green Lodge sits in the London suburb of Roehampton on the edge of Putney Heath. Once a small village, the contemporary streetscape includes detached houses, some Georgian, many Edwardian, traditional terraces and large modernist council estates. Into this varied mix, Stylus Architects have found a slot of land behind a detached Victorian house on which to create a new build family home.
Exterior views of Green Lodge
Step inside Green Lodge, a new-build home in South London
The new structure replaces outbuildings and wasteland and was built for a contractor with a long working relationship with Stylus. Aside from the programme, their only requirement was that Stylus, led by Matthew Withers, could ‘do whatever you want, but it has to be quick.’ Partly to maximise the environmental performance but also to help the project through planning, Stylus dug down and set much of the accommodation below street level, allowing the façade to remain single-storey.
As a result, the new house inverts the conventional layout and places the living room, dining area and kitchen on the ground floor, with three bedrooms on the lower ground floor. From the street, an angular, wood clad façade hints at something very interesting behind, with its seamless, faceted roof and flush roof-lights, but all is not revealed until you step through the gate.
While the living areas are flooded with light, the lower ground floor is illuminated by twin south-facing sunken courtyards that lead directly into the surrounding garden via external staircases, as well as a roof-light directly above the staircase.
The lightwells are cleverly placed to bring daylight into all three bedrooms, one of which is ensuite. The other two share a bathroom containing a free-standing tub from Lusso Stone, who also supplied the sinks and toilets. Illuminated roof panels are set above a wooden lattice ceiling, which neatly obscures the absence of daylight.
The downstairs bathroom
All bedrooms feature integral joinery and storage that has been carefully designed to abut the house’s exposed concrete structure. The result is a feeling of consistency and precision that maximises the available dimensions in every direction and creates a unified aesthetic throughout the house. In the children’s bedrooms, the wardrobes contain integral workspaces, while upstairs there’s a storage wall that includes a fireplace.
This clever use of single materials to expand the sense of space is especially obvious on the ground floor, where the ceiling heights rise into the pitch of the roof, with single pane roof-lights appearing to float above the openings in the slope.
Engineered wood floors pair with the cabinetry, with a bespoke oak and steel staircase, complete with angle balustrades, adding a clearly defined pathway to the lower floor. The exterior is clad completely in larch, maintaining a sense of unity and solidity.
The main living space in Green Lodge
At 175 sqm, the house is relatively modest in scale. A combination of photovoltaic panels and air source heat pump – complete with bespoke cooling grille design by Withers – make this a very low energy house indeed, thanks in part to the inherent thermal stability of the underground bedrooms.
According to the architects, ‘Green Lodge reads as a singular sculptural form that will weather and soften over time, embedding itself further into the wooded landscape of the heath. The result is a restrained and confident piece of architecture that is both highly resolved and deeply connected to its place.’
