When the Victorians were in their constructive heyday, London was still horse powered. While the grand town houses of Kensington had their mews houses to stable the animals, further out in the newly accessible boroughs, the larger properties had coach houses. By 1900, there were around 300,000 horses working in London – but who can forget the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894? Inevitably we fell out of love with our equine engines, and their passing released thousands of buildings for creative reuse.
Just as the mews houses have been reinvented as desirable pied-a-terres, so too their suburban cousins. This project takes the site of an existing coach house as precedent for a newly built home. Set within a Conservation Area, it adopts the scale and materials of the original, adapted to a contemporary aesthetic and functionality. Benefitting from an independent access, it is able to sit in a secluded garden environment, far from the mechanised hum of the modern street.
