It's exactly ten years since Dame Zaha Hadid passed away unexpectedly at the age of 65, leaving an unassailable legacy in her Issey Miyake-clad wake. In a strange piece of synchronicity, there’s now an incredibly rare chance to own one of her buildings in the heart of London.
Constructed from 2014 onwards, this house in Belgravia’s Grosvenor Crescent Mews has the distinction of being one of only two private residential projects completed by the studio (the other being the Capital Hill Residence outside Moscow).
The façade on Grosvenor Crescent Mews
A unicorn in the London property market, 6 Grosvenor Crescent Mews isn’t just a rare example of Hadid’s work but it’s also a 3,980 sq ft house with integral garage just a stone’s throw from Hyde Park Corner, located in what is Belgravia's only private gated mews.
Ground floor living room
Staircase leading to lower ground floor
Gaining permission for such an avant-garde structure in the midst of a thicket of Conservation Areas and listed buildings was no mean feat, even for an architecture of the calibre of Zaha Hadid. The site had boundaries with no fewer than nine different neighbours, placed in such a way that the only public-facing façade was just six metres in width.
That element, a rippling curtain of back-lit brickwork lattices and patterned glass, belies the scale of the house behind it, which extends over four generous 1,000 sq ft floorplans.
The garage was a planning condition, but it was fitted out to a residential specification so that it can be used as a study area if needed. It adjoins the main reception room, a space bounded by the curved interventions of the polished balustrade rail and the custom-designed staircase, formed from polished concrete and shaped to wind sinuously between the floors.
Like many London mews and conversion projects, the house goes down as well as up, with a kitchen and sitting room located in the basement, beneath a double height space which in itself is topped by a glazed terrace at first floor level. With windows, parapets, courtyards and walls arranged so as to avoid overlooking from surrounding properties, the entire house is cleverly folded into its site, making the most from the available space.
The balustrade and staircase beyond
Utility, plant and stores are tucked away in the basement behind the kitchen, another area that is defined by a trademark Hadidian swoop, this time in the form of a polished kitchen counter that projects out from the wall like a geological form.
From here, the two-storey atrium rises up to the gauzy light that filters through the glass roof, with the polished balustrade playing off the curved concrete stair risers contained behind a glazed wall.
The primary bedroom has direct access to the terrace
The first floor houses the principal bedroom suite, complete with curved glass and sole access to the terrace. A living wall flanks the perimeter of the property (it’s joined by a brown roof system designed to improve the house’s insulation), while the glazed stair tower rises up beneath the fluted forms of another skylight. On the second floor there are two further ensuite bedrooms, each winding around a central dressing room space.
The terrace adjoins the glazed stairwell and has a planted wall
The artistry and style of 6 Grosvenor Crescent Mews is sadly unrepeatable, making this project a rare opportunity to acquire a functional work of art in the heart of London.
In the decade since her death, the firm Hadid established in Studio 9 of a former school on Bowling Green Lane in Clerkenwell has gone all out into making her wildly exuberant approach into a clearly defined architectural style, Parametricism, translating Hadid’s wild, analogue forms into a heady, AI-infused cocktail of data-shaped aesthetic adventures.
If you can ignore the Succession-like shenanigans that have swirled around ZHA in the years that followed, the Zaha Hadid Foundation holds a fascinating archive of her work.
6 Grosvenor Crescent Mews by Zaha Hadid Architects
6 Grosvenor Crescent Mews, London SW1X is for sale at £11.95m through Forbes Gilbert-Green, ForbesGilbertGreen.com