Tea Caddy House

Sometimes the errors of past designers provide lucky breaks. This Georgian house in Blackheath is listed, but an oversized 1960s side extension, a stripped-out interior and a separate bungalow in the garden provided an opportunity for Charles Barclay to design a truly unique home for his client, a lover of modern art and design.

The old house was given a simple interior with bleached pine floors while the side extension was turned in to the new entrance hall and kitchen, the latter in a sculpted, double-height space. A new all-glass extension provides a dining space that is contiguous with the kitchen and a sense of actually being outside in the garden.

A modern L-shaped garden room/ guest lodge replaces the old bungalow, dividing the main, walled garden from a small wild garden to the rear, and a terrace of polished concrete with its carp-filled moat provides a secluded sitting out area.

This project was very much about designing an entire terrain, with the close interaction of a sequence of interior and garden spaces. Once again our collaborators were landscape architects Del Buono Gazerwitz.

We had been renting a house designed by CB Architects for 4 years. When we decided to buy our own house, we approached CB Architects for designing what would become a heavy refurbishment project. It has been a pleasure and a very fruitful collaboration. We have very much appreciated the way they managed to translate our expectations and their understanding of the quality we were looking for. The follow-up of the activities on site has also been an excellent journey.

Private client