House in a Garden
London, UK, 2012—2018
Replacing a 1960's bungalow, a new pavilion and two underground stories provide a new house on a hidden, garden site. Externally the most visible component of the house is its pavilion like copper-clad roof. Inside, the roof comprises of a complex glulam timber structure made from spruce, its double curvature concluding in a glazed oculus. The roof has a floating quality set above a glass walled living room that enhances a sense of lightness while connecting the interior of the house to the surrounding landscaped garden as well as to its urban context.
There are two levels below the ground floor. Bedrooms are immediately below ground, while there is a generous living/ gallery area with a 10 metre long swimming pool on a level further below. Light wells and skylights are designed to optimise daylight casting top light onto the walls of lower ground floors. Introducing daylight to a depth of up to eight metres was a challenge especially as the site of the house is tight and north facing. Digital analysis tools were used to seek out the three dimensional possibilities that light gives in terms of generating the form and organisation of the building.
‘Botsford is a rare architect that has no stylistic preconceptions: each of his projects (including the Lubetkin Prize winning Casa Ki-Ké in Costa Rica and Layered Gallery in London) show the same focussed application of an idea but look completely different from one another. He demonstrates how an extraordinary body of work can be developed from the most straightforward of building typologies. Whatever Botsford does next, we know it won’t be like anything he has done before.’
Piers Taylor, Architecture Today, January 2019.
Sunlight
Piers Taylor is in conversation with Gianni Botsford, discussing his 25 year analytical journey of creating architecture shaped by the movement of the sun.
A film by Jim Stephenson of Stephenson / Bishop.
