Image Credit : Daniele Petteno Architecture Workshop
Project Overview
A 'three-dimensional' apartment from a small roof extension.
The Olympia Loft shows the result of the transformation of a 55sqm, self-contained, unmodernised and very fragmented single floor flat, product of a speculative 1980’s house-to-flats conversion, into a 77 sqm open plan and section double height apartment.
The design concept has been developed turning ‘limits’ into ‘design essentials’ of a quite ambitious brief, in three main ways: (a) reducing the amount of roof extension proposed to a minimum, acceptable for the Local Planning Authority, but still able to give the maximum use of the new space generated in the converted loft, (b) opening up and visually connecting the two new internal levels through double heights and mutual views, (c) remodelling all the windows and skylights on the front wall and roof to optimize the amount of natural light and ventilation in the internal spaces.
The result is an apartment with an open plan layout for the Kitchen-Dining-Living areas at the lower level and a master bedroom en-suite on the upper mezzanine-balcony level, which seems to solidly ‘seat’ on the linear kitchen on one side and almost ‘float’ over the living areas on the other end, overlooking them through a full width internal glazing. An apartment with an internal spirally-shaped circulation that, wrapping around the two bathrooms, connects all the spaces, and where the white surfaces diffuse the natural light and the exposed bricks create internal contrasts, revealing somehow the terraced nature of the house.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Daniele Petteno Architecture Workshop
Team
Architectural & Interior design: Daniele Petteno DPAW
Kitchen and bespoke furniture design: Daniele Petteno DPAW
Structural design: James Birdwood - BTA Structural Design
Building Inspector: Thames Building Control
General Contractor: Mick Maher
Project Brief
The Design brief for the Olympia Loft project came out from a very cooperative communication with the clients, owners of the flat. At any stage of the project, we dedicated adequate time to discuss with them their expectations, ideas and dreams. We understood what they always hoped to have and realized that this apartment would have accompanied them in the sweet transitions of their growing family.
In the larger scale Clients requirements/requests seemed to focus on three main targets: add as many additional spaces as possible to their existing flat for their current and future needs, improve in a considerable way their overall living quality and doing this mostly within the volume of the existing fabric, as substantial roof extensions would not have been approved by the local Planning Authority.
In the smaller scale, their brief appeared instead to be relatively detailed and diversified, but at the same time necessarily very flexible. This both to accommodate potential future changes in their habits and lifestyle and also to allow a more spot on fine tuning after the first ideas about the full remodelling and extension of the spaces would have been explored.
Project Innovation/Need
The Clients made for the project a quite interesting request: the place should have somehow looked like a cosy opened studio-loft suitable for the life of a young couple, but actually equipped and effectively working like a 2 bedrooms apartment, better suitable for the life of their young family.
We found quite fascinating this potential duality, and that both of these sides of the project should have combined with harmony, without prevail each other. The interior architecture they always hoped to have as a couple should have been as good and convincing as the practicality and the use of the spaces they will have soon needed as young family.
Spaces opened in the way they were asking should have been at the same time compatible with the needs of having independent rooms with adequate visual and acoustic privacy. In the same way opened layouts for the living and sleeping areas should have well coordinate with the need of having several storages, diversified for locations, sizes, needs and accesses.
Design Challenge
The main challenge in this project has been to generate all the additional spaces Clients required, give them an overall improved living quality, but doing this mostly within the volume of the existing fabric, and without therefore any substantial roof extension. This because in the recent years, the increasing overall interest in preserving the already built environment, where consistent and clearly characterized and even if not necessarily Listed or within Conservation Areas, has led London local authorities to review their planning policies to consent only relatively minor variations to buildings which belong to consistent groups, like in our case, unless such variations would appear to be as common trends already implemented in most of the buildings of the same group.
In our terrace, a full and large rear roof extension was definitely not a trend, and we thought then to work on the challenging constrains and limits of the existing house, to turn them into ‘design essentials’ of our concept.
The Kitchen had to be extremely optimized in order to have all the required functions and hidden storages but preserving at the same time the linear layout to give space to the adjacent dining area; the Master Bedroom had two sufficiently-sized wardrobes thanks to the internal optimization of the spaces that flexibly follow the roof shape; the en-suite Bathroom had comfortable headroom thanks to the installation of the rooflights, which effectively extended the room height by approx. 250mm, and so on through all the main design elements.
Sustainability
In the full remodelling of a fabric with more than a century of life, sustainability has also been a key factor to deliver a place which should have been comfortable and pleasant to be lived, financially affordable for running costs and respectful of the environment.
The sustainability strategy we developed to achieve this is based on 3 simple but essential principles:
(1) Maximize the thermal performances of the building envelope: deeply Insulating all the external-facing elements, avoiding thermal bridging and improving the overall air and wind tightness towards quite higher standards.
(2) Optimize the use of the natural light and ventilation: relocating windows and door-windows in a way that could have ensured a uniform amount of natural daylight in all the spaces and efficient natural ventilation throughout.
(3) Select and Install appliances and technical devices (boiler, light bulbs, kitchen appliances, etc..) with very high rates of energy efficiency.
The result is an apartment with a balanced thermal and hygrometric comfort, with very low CO2 emissions, very low running costs and practical and convenient to be maintained.
Interior Design - Residential
This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors with consideration given to space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes and aesthetic presentation. Consideration also given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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