How to maximise light: inside a London terrace house after total overhaul — led by the changing light of every season

Max Taylor’s father advised him to live in his tired Victorian terrace house for a year before gutting and extending it, to learn how changing natural light catches it from spring through to winter.

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Liz Hoggard2 April 2020

Oliver Leech Architects, a young specialist studio based in Wandsworth, has transformed a wisteria-clad mid-terrace Victorian house in Camberwell with ground-floor, side and rear extensions, using a palette of raw, natural materials — exposed brickwork, timber and concrete — that respect the patina of the original house, creating a sympathetic relationship between old and new.

The light-filled ground-floor extension stretches into the garden, blending indoor and outdoor space.

Here a scrappy, paved patch has been turned into a trellis-lined, urban oasis, set with a garden bench and planters of lavender.

“To be honest, I’m not hugely green-fingered,” admits the owner, Max Taylor, an advertising executive. “But it looks and smells great and it is low-maintenance.”

When Max bought the two-storey house in 2015, it was in poor condition, with little natural light and a cramped kitchen.

“I was looking for something with character that I could do up in a few years’ time. Dad gave me some good advice. He said, ‘You should live in a house for all seasons before doing work to it, to see where the light catches and what spots you want to be in.”’

After living in the property for three years, Max knew he wanted to redesign the house to provide new cooking and eating spaces facing out on to the garden.

“I noticed the old side return got amazing light in the summer, so when I was speaking to Oliver, I said, ‘When we build the kitchen extension, we must keep this area open to catch the evening sun’.”

He also wanted to maximise open-plan living to provide more usable space and a calm atmosphere. Work began in September 2018.

Max moved out for six months while the house was stripped back to a shell, extended and internally rebuilt.

Leech’s aim was to maximise the height of the new extensions and introduce large glazed openings.

“Natural light is a very easy and inexpensive thing to make the most of,” he says.

Light-filled: pitched skylights in the side extension let the evening sun pour in
Juliet Murphy

The side extension provides extra width to the previously narrow kitchen, with pitched skylights overhead.

White oiled Douglas fir was combined with pale buff bricks to provide a subtle contrast with the existing London brickwork.

A rear extension with a high ceiling projects slightly further into the garden, framing a set of white-oiled Douglas fir bi-folding doors across a low-height window seat that has pull-out drawers for extra storage.

The bespoke seat, formed in cast stone, is flexible, in that the bi-fold doors fully retract and you can sit facing the kitchen, or with your legs lolling into the garden.

The bespoke-built kitchen, designed by the architects, continues the use of exposed raw materials, with a polished concrete countertop and sink to match the grey microcement kitchen floor.

Domestic touches warm up the pared-back design. No true whites have been used on walls and ceilings. Rich green units with circular handle detail run along the left side of the kitchen.

“The green band of the planting in the garden continues through the kitchen,” says Leech.

There’s underfloor heating, while Tala pendant lights hang over the long wooden table in the side extension.

The materials used for the extension continue through into the patio, with buff clay pavers laid in herringbone bond, surrounded by white-oiled timber boundary screens.

“We got rid of the steps to the garden and made it all one level,” says Max.

In the reception areas at the front of the house, original timber floors have been sanded back and oiled, and a muted colour palette employed on walls and ceilings.

The dark, narrow hallway has been opened up to expose the original wall structures, which creates extra light.

“We kept the old timber studwork to retain some of the history of the house,” says Leech.

The front room has been turned into a “chill-out space”, with sofas, rugs and a film projector to screen movies. This leads into Max’s reading room.

“Max told us he wanted a space to hand-write letters,” says Leech.

Upstairs there are new windows in Max’s bedroom. In the bathroom, he now has a cast-iron bath in front of the window and a walk-in shower.

Plastered walls were left exposed and sealed to create a textural finish.

“Max’s brief was that he wanted a contemporary home, but he didn’t want to lose any sense of comfort and warmth,” says Leech, who founded his studio, specialising in small to medium-scale residential architecture, in 2016.

Max says he loves living with the seasons.

“You hardly need the lights on in this room, even at 10pm. I enjoy just sitting in silence in the space that’s been created.”

He has hung photos and artworks, but at certain times of the day the sunlight creates beautiful graphic patterns on the wall.

“The way the light hits the timber beams in the kitchen, and then refracts around the extended kitchen is amazing.”

  • Project cost: £204,000

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