judd street, kings cross, london

Two flats were built by an architect in the form of a four storey house to provide a home for himself on the upper levels and a rental apartment on the lower floors. The new building, completed in 1985, stands at the end of a brick Georgian terrace, the proportions of which it echoed.

Project Orange became involved in converting the two apartments into one house. The intention was to make a new entrance hall and to reconfigure the kitchen in a low-key manner that acknowledges the past inhabitation of the house. The result is a collage of materials and elements that have not been streamlined or over designed but which enhance the existing architectural language of the building and take it in a new direction.

A new flight of entrance steps made of cast pink terrazzo lead up to the new oak front door. Inside, the entrance hall has a floor of highly polished black resin reflecting the surrounding surfaces of oak, plaster and render like an oil slick. An oak bench suggests a place to pause. The stairs were reconfigured to provide new access to the lower ground floor. On axis with the front door is the salon, with its bright lime green architrave, that can be closed off by folding doors. The rooms are painted white and minimally furnished.

Upstairs the kitchen has been slotted into a corner of the main living space behind the stair hall. A massive pink terrazzo slab folds to form worktop, splash back and downstand, enveloping the baby pink cabinets. Walls are rough cast render set off by a burnished brass wall cabinet and extract shroud. The kitchen is the antithesis of the slick and minimal and celebrates the eccentric.