This is the latest instalment of The Inside Story, Wallpaper’s series spotlighting intriguing, innovative and industry-leading interior design.
At the top of Regent's Park Road, where Primrose Hill's terraces begin their steep climb, a tall, narrow townhouse manages to feel both serious and unserious, sophisticated yet lighthearted.
Home to a couple and their dog, the three-storey house had a specific brief – one that isn't requested enough in a world of extreme curation in high-end design: the ability to not feel ‘overly interior designed’. Finding an interior designer to execute this wasn't necessarily easy, but in 2021 the couple came across Studio Iro's breezy, under-curated work in a magazine feature.
The architectural bones were already in place, courtesy of Chassay & Last, who opened the rear of the house into a double-height volume, slotted a mezzanine above the kitchen, and installed a stone, blackened-steel and glass staircase, drawn together with a shadow-gap detail sharp enough to cut.
Recreate the mood
Onto this, Studio Iro refined the layouts and specified finishes in a way that never feels over-engineered. Central to achieving this are the colour threads running through the house: a blue leopard-print carpet in the hallway sets the indigo undertone found throughout the property, echoed in a deep navy in the bedroom, lavender-grey stone in one bathroom and ridged dark-blue glazed tiles below ground. A burnt-orange sofa and terracotta accents on the top floor provide the contrast.
Texture plays an equally important role in lending sophistication. Clay Works limewash brings a soft, chalky quality to the primary bedroom and bathroom, while limewashed wood, stone and microcement create a tactile backdrop throughout. On the lower ground floor, microcement flows from the open-plan interior out into the garden, pairing with blackened-steel kitchen cabinetry and exposed brick for a calm, industrial feel.
Where the house does allow itself a flourish, it's a considered one: a kitchen island developed with Adam Blencowe, and a custom chest of drawers, vanity console and rug for the primary bedroom. The kitchen, built with Roundhouse, sets a Caesarstone worktop against blue-painted timber joinery; De La Espada dining chairs gather around a table the clients already owned.
That instinct – to add rather than replace – runs through the whole project. The clients' collection of modernist furniture, some of it decades old, wasn't cleared out to make way for something new. Instead, Studio Iro folded it back in, setting it alongside contemporary pieces in kindred materials.
The refusal to over-assert gives this house its authority. Studio Iro's real skill here isn't visible in any single room – it's in everything left alone, and every decision not to push further than necessary.
