Highgate Studios 53-79 Highgate Road London NW51TL
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Slope House
London
This 650sqm house comprises 7 bedrooms and includes a basement, sunken entrance level and 2.5 stories above ground arranged as split levels. The building is oriented east-west with single storey wings to the north and south and internal occupied rooms oriented toward a large south facing garden. This house is conceived as a vertical extrusion of the landscape in a series of split level floor/roof plates that wrap around a large south facing garden. Roof planes are cut and lifted to create smooth, sloping transitions between the split level volumes; this is a green sedum roof which will appear as an elevated landscape below the tree canopy. Horizontal cuts and vertical folds in the facades generate recessed and projecting elements which express the interlocking volumes of the house while maintaining continuity of surface. This cut and fold geometry breaks down the overall mass of the building into ‘offset’ one-storey elements, and creates faceted facades which will be animated by a continuous play of light, shade and shadow. The building form is both an expression of movement through the house from the low, northwest entry point of the house to the higher southeast corner living room and thence vertically to the ‘penthouse’ level, as well as a 3-dimensional manipulation of continuous interlocking spaces and landscape planes.