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      Architect couple turns Edinburgh apartment into modern living space

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      Married architects Luke and Joanne McClelland have overhauled their own apartment in Edinburgh, Scotland, to feature a sequence of contemporary light-filled living spaces.The lateral apartment spreads across the drawing-room levels of two adjoining Georgian townhouses in Edinburgh’s Comely Bank neighbourhood.
      Joanne and Luke McClelland – who runs his own architecture studio called MCLND – purchased it back in 2018, having spent the past eight years living in a cramped flat in London.

      Despite the grander scale of the Edinburgh apartment, it still had some significant problem areas.

      The north-facing living area had hardly any access to natural light, the bathroom had a dated, 70s-style turquoise interior and the kitchen was small and felt isolated from the other rooms.

      To create a bright and modern home, the McClelland’s decided they had to completely reconfigure the floor plan.
      The former kitchen has been opened up and now includes a dining area, complete with white-painted walls and oak herringbone floors.

      Along the rear wall runs a series of matt-black and wooden cabinets which were all sourced from IKEA – although the architects both have previously designed homes for wealthy clients, they didn’t feel the need to use expensive brands to achieve a high standard of design.
      “Having specified kitchens at over 10 times our available budget, we tried to use affordable products to recreate the specific qualities that previous clients associated with luxury, simplicity, symmetry and integration,” said the pair.

      Old Edinburgh workshop transformed into minimal holiday retreat by Izat Arundell

      To complement the cabinetry, black taps, pendant lamps and door handles have also been incorporated in the space. Black-frame chairs with woven seats have also been placed around the dining table.

      Doorways have been widened to let sunlight from the south side of the apartment penetrate the new living area, which has been created in a former bedroom.
      It’s dressed with a slate-grey sectional sofa, a couple of armchairs upholstered in forest-green velvet armchairs and a graphic monochrome rug.

      Jet-black paint has also been applied to the surround of the room’s fireplace, which used to be bright orange.
      “Whilst it didn’t fit with the Georgian property, there was a charm in the curved bricks and sheer brutality of the design,” the architects explained.

      The architects split the old living area to form two separate bedrooms, both of which feature original pine flooring and ornate cornices.
      A cupboard in the apartment and the disused pantry have together been transformed into a shower room. Stark white tiles have been applied in a grid-like fashion across its walls, while the floor has a striking triangle print.

      In the main bathroom, surfaces have been updated with glazed green tiles which clad the lower half of the walls and the front of the tub.
      The sink basin perches on top of a restored 1960s wooden sideboard by Danish designer Ib Kofod Larsen.

      Luke McClelland launched his own studio this year after leaving his position at Studio 304. He and his wife, Joanne McClelland, met whilst both studying architecture at the Edinburgh College of Art.
      Their apartment joins a number of design-focused properties in the Scottish capital.
      Others include Flitch House by Oliver Chapman Architects, which references the Arts and Crafts movement, and another home by studio Archer + Braun, which has a red-sandstone extension.
      Photography is by Zac and Zac.
      Project credits:
      Architects: Luke and Joanne McClellandStructural engineer: McColls

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      Tsubo House in Hackney features tiny Japanese-style courtyard

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      Architecture practice Fraher & Findlay has renovated and extended a home in east London, adding a small courtyard that offers glimpses of old and new parts of the property.Tsubo House was originally built in Hackney during the Victorian era and over the years had come to look shabby and unloved.
      The house’s current owners – the founders of Studio XAG – brought architecture practice Fraher & Findlay on board to carry out a complete overhaul.

      As part of the works, the Brockley-based practice constructed a spacious back-garden extension.

      It was key for this new living space to feel closely connected to existing rooms in the home and not too distanced from the basement level, which is often utilised by visiting friends and family.

      Fraher & Findlay decided to insert a small courtyard at ground level that would visually link together the new and existing parts of the home.

      Fraher & Findlay adds wildflower-topped extension to London house

      It draws upon tsubo-niwas – tiny interior courtyards that are incorporated into Japanese buildings to provide natural views and bring in additional sunlight.
      The courtyards are traditionally the same size as a tsubo, a Japanese measuring unit of 3.3 square metres that’s roughly equivalent to the area of two tatami mats.

      “We wanted an external environment to act as a pivot point between the spaces, whilst acting as an environmental tool to bring in lots of natural light and to aid natural ventilation,” said the practice.
      “It feels like a quiet force, providing life energy to the house.  it is visible from all the rooms in the house with the exception of two bedrooms and one bathroom.”

      The pebbled courtyard is centred by a tree and has an array of potted plants running around its periphery. Leafy climbing plants also wind up its rear wall.
      One window of the courtyard looks through to the older front section of Tsubo House, while the another has views of the new rear extension that accommodates a kitchen and dining area.

      Designed to feel “textured, calm and lived in”, the kitchen has been finished with pink raw-plaster walls and timber joinery. Some of the brass light fixtures were also sourced second-hand from eBay, complementing the curved brass handles on the cupboards.
      The extension has a slatted black-timber facade and a green roof, which the studio introduced so that, when viewed from the baby’s nursery upstairs, this part of the home would look as if it’s wearing a “hairy hat”.
      Flooring of the extension was also made lower than the rest of the home, as a mid-way between the ground and basement levels.

      Plaster surfaces continue through into the home’s living room, which the practice has updated to match the owners’ creative personalities. It’s dressed with velvet furnishings, shaggy rugs and a bubblegum-pink edition of Faye Toogood’s Roly-Poly chair.
      Decades-old paintwork has also been stripped back from the ornate cornices, ceiling roses and skirting boards.

      More quirky features appear upstairs – the nursery, for example, has a midnight blue ceiling speckled with stars, and all of the bathrooms feature graphic monochromatic tiled floors. One even includes its own fireplace and a freestanding jet-black tub.
      The project also saw Fraher & Findlay create a loft extension for Tsubo House that accommodates an additional bedroom and wash facilities.

      Fraher & Finlay was established in 2009. The practice has previously created a wildflower-topped extension and renovated a home to feature traces of its original architecture.
      Photography is by Adam Scott.
      Project credits:
      Architect: Fraher & FindlayInterior design: Studio XAGEngineer: PD DesignContractor: Steflay DevelopmentsGarden and planting design: Miria Harris

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      Aesop's London store takes its colour from the red sandstone of Glamis Castle

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      Precast stone blocks coloured with red sandstone from Glamis Castle in Scotland form the walls of this refuge-style Aesop store that architecture studio Al-Jawad Pike has created in a west London shopping centre.The studio designed the small store for skincare brand Aesop to be a retreat from the bustling aisles of Westfield shopping centre in Sheperd’s Bush.
      “We wanted the store to be a refuge from the busy mall environment, it is a sort of building within a building – using genuine masonry construction rather than applied finishes or surfaces,” Al-Jawad Pike co-founder Jessam Al-Jawad told Dezeen.

      Al-Jawad Pike chose to build the walls of the store from precast stone blocks, which enclose the space and create a feeling akin to a walled garden. The curved form of the walls is also meant to reference the undulating brickwork of Uruguayan engineer Eladio Dieste.

      “The concept was to create a kind of walled garden within the mall,” said Al-Jawad.
      “It was inspired by the ‘crinkle crankle’ wall of the English countryside as well as the structures of Eladio Dieste, which both use an undulating waveform to give rigidity to a single skin of masonry.”

      Earthy tones have been applied throughout the store. Powder from the same red sandstone that was used to make the 17th-century Glamis Castle in Scotland has been used to colour the precast stone blocks.
      The resulting red blockwork walls, which were built using two standard shapes of precast blocks, have been paired with red concrete-tile flooring and a clay plaster ceiling.

      Frida Escobedo segments Aesop Park Slope with rammed-earth brickwork

      “We wanted to use a warm colour to provide a sense of natural earthiness that reflected the red bricks of typical masonry walled gardens, said Al-Jawad.
      “The colour is called Glamis red named after the red sandstone of Glamis Castle in Scotland.”

      Set against the earthy red backdrop, Aesop’s products are displayed on stainless steel shelves. While the main space is broken up by three cast resin sinks that were produced by Sabine Marcelis.
      “We hope we created a calm ambience that enables customers to engage with the Aesop products,” Al-Jawad explained.
      “The hand-washing sinks which are a big part of the customers’ interaction with the product and the sales people are also given centre stage – being made out of honey-coloured resin they also look a bit like big bars of sculpted soap.”

      Aesop often allows its designers to create monotonal stores. For its Sydney store, architecture studio Snøhetta used granite to covers almost every surface, while Frida Escobedo used rammed-earth brickwork throughout its store in Brooklyn. Bernard Dubois also clad the walls of the brand’s Brussels store in distinctive yellow Belgian bricks.
      London-based Al-Jawad Pike was established by Al-Jawad and Dean Pike in 2014. The studio has previously used pigmented concrete blockwork for the exterior and interior of a south London home extension and combined brick, concrete and timber for an extension to a home in Stoke Newington.
      Photography is by Ståle Eriksen.

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      Yellow Cloud Studio punctuates Glyn House extension with arched window

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      A half-arch window in this east London home extension by Yellow Cloud Studio offers glimpses of the older parts of the property. Glyn House is situated in the neighbourhood of Clapton and is occupied by a young couple who are hoping to grow their family. Previously, the poky proportions of the house – which dates […] More

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      Gabriel Chipperfield gives London newsagents plush revamp

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      Gabriel Chipperfield has created an “Alice in Wonderland”-style warren of luxurious rooms behind Shreeji newsagents in central London. Shreeji newsagent and tobacconist is located on Chiltern Street in London’s affluent Marylebone neighbourhood, just a stone’s throw from the notable hotel Chiltern Firehouse. The shop was set up by Sandeep Garg in 1982, and has since […] More

    • 163 Shares139 Views

      Grove Park house by O'Sullivan Skoufoglou Architects has wooden lining and verdant views

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      O’Sullivan Skoufoglou Architects has created ash-lined living spaces with expansive windows inside a gardener’s home in Lewisham, southeast London. Grove Park is an end-of-terrace house that was originally built back in the 1980s. The wood-lined rooms that O’Sullivan Skoufoglou Architects has created are on the home’s ground floor, which was extended by incorporating a small […] More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      2LG Studio enlivens Louisville Road house in London with bright hues

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      In a colourful overhaul of this period house in Tooting, south London, 2LG Studio has added dusky pink walls, blue tilework and coral-orange cabinetry. Louisville Road house falls under the Heaver Estate conservation area – a series of period properties that were constructed between 1888 and 1910 in south London’s Balham and Tooting neighbourhoods. The […] More

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      Szczepaniak Astridge focuses London loft extension on timber bath

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      Szczepaniak Astridge has added a rooftop extension to Leaf House, a terrace in south London for architectural photographer Edmund Sumner and writer Yuki Sumner. Designed to be a peaceful retreat, the loft extension contains the Sumners’ master bedroom and features a wooden bath positioned against a large window with views across London. “Leaf House was […] More