dMFK Architects brings revived Voysey House in Chiswick full circle

When I met Mathilda Lewis and Joshua Scott of dMFK Architects at the Grade II* listed Voysey House, Chiswick, it turned out to be their first time seeing the finished interior too. Cue stressful flashbacks of 90s Changing Rooms episodes when the contestants’ blindfolds are lifted and they hate the curtains. Thankfully there is zero risk of that happening here – the tenant is Sanderson Design Group.

Voysey House was constructed in 1902, the only commercial building designed by CFA Voysey. With its distinctive scallop-edged parapet and arts and crafts facade, it is a prominent and cherished local landmark. Originally an adjunct to the Sanderson wallpaper factory, it was built to the dimensions of the wallpaper machines inside. These presses sat on two floors, while a sawtooth roof containing north-lights illuminated the design studio.

When in 1928 the main factory was destroyed by fire, the company moved away, but Voysey House next door was unscathed, and took on other uses. By the time it was acquired by developer Dorrington (whose own headquarters are in a Voysey townhouse) in 2020, it had been offices, a garage, and even the home of an architect: in the 1980s, architect Charles Lawrence, head of the Voysey Society, converted the top two floors into his family apartment. Pet rabbits ran about on the roof. ‘It’s definitely had a nice life,’ says Scott. ‘But we wanted it to be a better version of itself.’

Dorrington was committed to restoring the building into an elegant, fit-for-purpose office space, and dMFK has a strong track record for sensitive retrofit. Meanwhile, Lawrence, who had compiled an archive of the building’s history, generously shared this knowledge, helping Lewis to painstakingly peel back each historical layer of the building.

Shortly after construction began on site, Sanderson re-entered the scene, signing up as its tenant. Its input to the designs enabled the building’s history to go full circle.

The first layer to be stripped back was the facade. Remediation to the original glazed brickwork, which was ‘failing and popping’ made repair works seem ‘like a game of Jenga’, says Lewis. Shotblasting revealed a blue coloured original brick. This inspired the choice of Ketley Staffordshire blue brick in the interior stairwell, paired with durable brass inlays, as well as on the top floor terrace with the use of KME Tecu Cassette Cladding, whose copper oxide will patinate over time. 

dMFK also engaged in negotiations with Historic England and Hounslow Council over upgrades to the windows, securing permission to use ultra-thin 7.7mm Fineo vacuum double glazing, by West Leigh, with steel frames reproducing the original profiles in a colour-matched ‘Voysey bottle green’. This outcome reduced the building’s U-value by over 50%, contributing to an EPC rating of A.

Due to its manufacturing intent, the building had been built a little like a fortress, with the ground floor windows sitting above head height. At some point in its history a raised access floor had been added. This has been removed and replaced with a durable larch mosaic floor and the space is now a showroom. The high-placed windows are no longer a problem, as the stretch of wall beneath them is just the right height for hanging fabric samples.

A clipping system has been subtly integrated onto the original steel beams, allowing Sanderson to showcase full drops of wallpaper on moveable partitions, useful for dividing the large open space. Several pieces of old wallpaper machinery and associated tools make for charming artefacts in the space they once occupied.

‘Given that there wasn’t this huge interior fit out for us before Sanderson took occupancy, any opportunity to build in some craft, or our version of what Voysey might have done, we took’, explains Scott. This is most notable in the joinery, for instance inside the lifts, and in the robust entrance doors. The arch of the entrance is original, but in the altered building, an angled weather-lobby with a metal door across it had been added. This had to go. ‘We started looking a lot at Voysey’s joinery and how he had internally panelled some of the residential projects he had done and came up with a language of our own,’ explains Scott.

Upstairs, further stripping out revealed original pitch pine flooring, complete with ink stains from the printing process. Retaining these wear and tear marks helped the architect feel less precious about things: ‘You don’t have to nanny the building,’ notes Scott. Unusually for London, this floor is quadruple aspect, and now a design studio for teams from Harlequin, Zoffany, Morris & Co and other brands under the Sanderson umbrella. 

Regarding the upper two floors, which had been the apartment, ‘we decided to lean into their presence,’ says Scott. The undulating roof, of which the architect was initially dubious, it soon became fond of, agreeing that it lends the uppermost office space a sense of character. Lawrence had designed it to follow the lines of the parapet for good reason: ‘Every other way you drew it, it made it a worse space,’ Scott concedes. ‘Keeping it tight to the parapet gives the space a generosity; as soon as you level it off it gives a low ceiling, and now I think it’s a really nice office floor’ he admits. 

‘We regularised the lightwell which had been chamfered, bringing it more in line with what might have been Voysey’s intent,’ continues Lewis. There is now a courtyard on the third floor, overlooked by an accessible terrace on the level above. 

The rhythm of the arched glass doors ‘echoes with what is happening on other floors’ and these spaces have been readily embraced by Sanderson employees, who relish the outside space.

Thanks to the building’s manufacturing history and robust structure, it was in the unusual position of being able to accommodate Sanderson’s 12-tonne archive on the third floor. This collection of 75,000 documents, textile samples, wallpapers and artworks, was craned in via the lightwell. ‘And we only cracked one tile in the process’, says archivist Caitlin Stracey.

For Sanderson, moving home represented a ‘thrilling’ opportunity to showcase and use its own materials in the interior. Bright florals line the walls and ceilings of the bathrooms and vestibules, as well as the two meeting rooms. ‘Obviously the architects painted it white – this gives it more life,’ jokes Lewis. ‘We are realising how boring we are. Perhaps we need to add more colour in our designs.’ ‘We can help!’ comes the immediate rejoinder from Sanderson’s CEO Lisa Montague.

‘It’s been a very interesting project because of the stories,’ concludes Lewis. ‘It was a labour of love from everyone involved.’ The team should be rightly proud of having created a cohesive and exciting space from so many diverse inputs. As Scott says: ‘Sometimes the building does the designing for you.’