Rylett Studios
Originally an office unit, and before that an industrial laundry facility, Rylett Crescent has known many lives. Its latest incarnation is a four-bedroom house, turned upside down.
Occupying a former office, the layout of the building lent itself to a ‘flipped’ arrangement: the living areas occupy the light-drenched first floor, with the bedrooms and bathrooms located on the darker and cooler ground floor.
Whilst the ground floor caters to a busy programme of efficiently planned sleeping quarters, the first floor embraces a huge double-height room capped by a continuous glazed roof lantern and clerestory windows.
Rising from the cool, dark entrance hall of concrete and oak panelling the staircase is bathed in light as it arrives at first floor level, facing the roof garden carved out of the original volume. The kitchen, dining and living areas are all open plan along the twelve-metre length of the room, wrapped in white painted panelling extending up to, and partially obscuring, the clerestory windows. The rhythmic panelling conceals much of the necessary amenity spaces off the central living area and provides a neutral backdrop to the expanse of concrete flooring and beautifully figured smoked oak joinery. More intimate areas are planned off the main central space; built-in seats and sofas for eating, reading, watching television all provide an escape from the main ‘room’ of the house.
Downstairs, an altogether more dark and brooding oak-lined corridor serves all the bedrooms. The oak wall panelling continues across the bedroom doors to conceal their position, which is only evident by the flush bronze pull handles. Each room is simply decorated to make best use of limited natural daylight and the Carrara marble bathrooms continue this theme, lending the ground floor a cool and understated elegance.
Photo Credits: Nick Guttridge
