The request can’t have been customary, even for a firm committed to artfully restoring old buildings. Tuckey Design Studio’s client, a Hong Kong businessman who frequently travels to the UK for work, wanted a bespoke alternative to hotel stays. He presented the architects with an early Victorian townhouse in the heart of Knightsbridge and asked that they transform it into “a minimalist, monastery-like space.”
The client discovered Tuckey from a first-rate source: he admired the firm’s work on the nearby Egg Trading boutique and home, two Remodelista landmarks, and wanted a similar approach, combining preservation and reinvention.
Citing the all-timber interior of Kyoto’s 17th century Katsura Imperial Villa as their inspiration, project architects, Ryuta Hirayama and Dan Stilwell, responded by stripping down the structure and spotlighting its wooden lattice structure throughout. Featuring a complex combination of new and gnarled timbers, their work was recently shortlisted for a 2024 Wood Award. “A singular post on the lower ground floor acts as the house’s trunk, progressively stemming out in all directions culminating in a plywood canopy on the top ceiling,” they write. Join us for an exploratory tour.
Photography by Fran Mart, unless noted, courtesy of Tuckey Design Studio.
Above: The owner took an online tour of the building during lockdown in late 2020 and despite a water damaged and dark interior, purchased it from afar.
Tuckey Design Studio’s work included meticulously restoring the façade, which had been “smothered and obscured in a flat white render” (scroll to the end for a Before shot). It now has double-glazed wooden sash windows in place of PVC and an enclosed front courtyard. Photograph by Dirk Lindner.
Above: An arched metal canopy over the entry extends the lines of the owindow over the front door. Suspended white wall panels section off the entry from the living area and provide a spot for shoe storage. The floor is reclaimed wood.
Above: “The interior was in a tired state with severe water damage, minimal natural light, and lots of internal partition walls,” reports Tuckey Design Studio. “The house was taken back to its bare bones; the tactile character of the rich timber floor joists below and roof trusses above encouraged the architects to revel in their imperfections rather than concealing them.”
Stilwell and Hirayama offset the wood with white walls and enlisted ship builders to create a complex curving stair with a dramatic plywood enclosure stained midnight blue (see more of it below).
Above: A newly exposed original chimney breast finished in limewash serves as a focal point in the room. Each of the three floors has a similar fireplace in the same location. The client is a collector of art and objects and requested niches and ledges throughout for display.
Explains Hirayama: “In place of extending the footprint, we maximized the psychological space through gap shadow walls, mirrors, and allowing the height of the building to be visible throughout.”
Above: The kitchen and dining area were relocated from the top floor to the garden level. The back stair is identical in materials and finish to the front, but, in the architects’ words, “more uniform in its form.” The floor is exposed aggregate concrete.
Above: The cabinets are bespoke and have a cast concrete countertop and backsplash.
Above: The sink faucets are made from copper piping. Note the combination of old and new ceiling joists. “We took joy in exposing the humble original structure, supported with a crisp new timber skeleton which cradles lightweight divisions that recede from the walls to allow revitalizing air and light to circulate,” says Stilwell.
Above: Display shelves are built into the partial wall that creates a “soft divide” between the kitchen and office.
Above: Next to the kitchen, the powder room sink is set in a recess in the base of the exposed brick chimney breast. The concrete basin is the Fox from Kast with a copper faucet (see Trend Alert: 10 DIY Faucets Made from Plumbing Parts).
Above: The architects envisioned the living area’s midnight blue stair as a sculptural element in the room,
Above: Made by ship builders from what the architects describe as “hand-folded plywood,”the stair “curves and levitates with an ethereal grace adjacent to the surrounding walls as if placed in after the work was complete.”
Above: Remember that the owner requested austere quarters as a respite. The main bedroom has a built-in platform bed with storage drawers and a plywood ceiling set off by dark roof trusses.
Above: The floor is reclaimed wood and the closet is tucked alongside the limewashed fireplace.
Above: A moment of luxury: there’s a custom-built Japanese soaking tub under a skylight in the en suite bath.
Above: The tub has a raw iroko wood spout that will patina over time. The walls are finished with “a natural resin to enhance the sense of tranquillity.”
Before
Above: A glimpse of the original main stair and evidence of water damage.
Above: The kitchen was on the top floor under the ceiling rafters.
We are longstanding Tuckey Design Studio fans:
- A Family Home in a Seaside Church in Devon: A Creative Reuse Project
- A Century-Old Italian Farmhouse for All Seasons
- An Updated Cornish Longhouse
- A Composed Life: A Rarefied London Townhouse Remodel
- Swish Chalet: An Alpine Remodel by Jonathan Tuckey