Caulfeild House, Clapham

Comprising the eastern half of an interwar semi, this home had been progressively extended northward, forming an accretion of rooms and a poorly planned kitchen that struggled to define a pattern of use. Brisco Loran were commissioned to reconsider the layout of the home’s rear spaces with a license to design a new kitchen, to replace ailing finishes, and to open up areas of the recently built rear façade. Where many might have looked to start over, this is a project where client and architect have looked to roll with the punches thrown by previous reworkings. Structural works were limited to the widening of a rear opening, with the bricks redeployed to build up the cill of the incoming timber window. A strip-out phase then lifted the floor finishes and broken under floor heating system, with the kitchen cabinetry sent for salvage.

These enabling works prepared the space for a new terracotta floor that binds the home’s rear rooms, flooding over the rear threshold to form a patio pocketed with sunken gardens. An eastern promontory hosts a circular metal table, whilst a brick-built barbecue rises from the western corner. New hoppers, downpipes, and a flying seven-metre trellis look to redress the discordant extension builds, whilst a new coat for the folding door frames completes the family of white-painted metalwork. The final phase of work saw joiner, Constructive and Co, build a single interconnected ash wood latticework of cabinetry, shelving, and seating to the designs of Brisco Loran. Its timber portal of display shelving marks the line of the original façade and is formed as a sibling for the white-painted glazed portal beside it. The day lit hob is spaced one bay from a low-rise bench where children are able to safely watch and take part in preparing food. The character of the family extends to the splash back, with tiling designed by the project’s client Sophie Caulfeild. The L-shaped bench wraps a square timber table, nestled within a niche beside the new window and sunken garden beyond.