Minty House brings quirkiness and colour to north London street

Can you briefly describe the project and your design objectives?

Minty House sits in a street of Victorian houses in West Hampstead. The client wanted a kitchen extension with a filled-in side return, better connection to the garden and a full refurbishment of the house from top to bottom. My objectives were to give the client the extra space and design coherence they were after, and to make everything flow better, opening up sightlines from front to back – but also to bring a little quirkiness and colour to a house that, at the start of the project, was pretty much indistinguishable from all the others in the street.

Who is the project for and what was the brief?  

The project was for a young family. The brief was simply to make their house into a beautiful home, with a light-filled, colourful, practical kitchen at its heart.

Were there any significant factors that influenced the design?

No, and we are grateful to Camden Council’s planners for supporting our vision for this characterful extension. The homogeneity of the houses nearby made me want to push the design to be as joyful and surprising as possible. I wanted to use simple shapes – triangles, circles and squares – and make a structure that calls to mind a child’s building blocks, to tap into those joyful childhood memories of play, and put a smile on the face of anyone experiencing the building. On the roof, for instance, there are four round rooflights in a row, but the fifth is a square. At the rear, two triangular roofs sit above two distinct shapes – a wedge and a cylinder – with two different windows: one square, and one with curved glass.

Can you explain the external treatment?  

I wanted to use an external material that could create these primary shapes with purity and simplicity, and which would also create the fluting that adds interest to the cylindrical element. I chose Stone-Coat by Build-Lite – an ultra-light polystyrene-based imitation stone material, which can be hotwire-cut into any shape. its lightness and its ability to be carved on site to fit, plus its affordability, and insulating properties, made it an excellent choice for the back of the building. It was then coated in render, and painted a refreshing mint ice-cream green, as were all the other new exterior walls and roofs.
 
How did you design the interiors?

The kitchen was designed in collaboration with the client and the kitchen company, Pluck. Pluck had a great idea to create a large circle on the kitchen worktop, to work with the primary shapes in the extension.

What has been the project’s approach to sustainability?

Our biggest sustainable move was to add as much insulation as possible, which will reduce heating costs.
 
what was the main challenge and how did you overcome it?

This project was affected, as so many others were, by the rise in costs of building materials due to the Truss budget and the war in Ukraine. Inflation hit 11 per cent during the course of the build, which meant labour and material costs increased dramatically in a short space of time. This meant we had to make last-minute alterations to the design in order to meet the budget – but the essence of the design wasn’t compromised, for which I’m very grateful to the client.

What is your favourite detail in the project?  

My favourite detail is the simple bay window, with curved glazing by Fluid Glass. The glass would, of course, have cost less if it hadn’t been curved, but this detail – reinforcing the cylindrical shape of this part of the building – makes all the difference.
  
Are there lessons from this project that might be applied elsewhere?

This project was the first time I had used Stone-Coat. I think it’s a really interesting material. It allows you, as an architect, to create interesting shapes that can sometimes be hard to achieve with traditional building methods due to cost and engineering. I will soon be using this material to form the arches on the surface of my next major project – the Cloud House in Gospel Oak, north Londo. This is currently under construction and being filmed by Grand Designs. So I’m glad it worked so well in Minty House.

Peter Morris is founder of Peter Morris Architects

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Key data:
Area of extension 15m²