Flat refurbishment

Londres, UK. 2007

Coleherne Court is a residential complex from the beginning of the 20th century built of the London classical red brick, with an inner courtyard in the best tradition of the romantic gardens, being one of the bigger and best preserved residential units in Kensington. The flat, with164 m², in spite of facing the garden from the first floor hardly got natural light due the excessive number of small rooms with dark finishes, being accessed from an inner hall clearly wasted.
The parti was to transform the inner hall into the real core of the house by opening it up to the garden to allow the natural light to come in. To do so the small rooms were transformed into bigger ones first, by demolishing the existing walls perpendicular to the façade whilst new openings were carved out into the load bearing brick wall to get new interesting visual connections to the garden. All of a sudden the scarce London’s sunlight was flooding the space. To complete the intervention all the wooden existing paving was renewed incorporating proper acoustic insulation under the floor to abide with the acoustic regulations.