Loop House
Teddington, London
Loop House is like a Lego box filled with colours and textures, rooms separated by portals, changing finishes and a flood of natural light. On the ground floor, we experimented with a new layout diagram that allows us to circle around the central core. The large openings between the rooms are not always aligned (like in the Mies Van der Rohe’s German houses), increasing the sense of surprise as we move through this narrative plan. We imagined large gatherings, long Scorsese-like camera movements through the space, and children playing hide and seek. We insulated and clad the extension in white tiles and opened it with corner sliding doors and a massive bifold window. The boundary between the garden and the house almost disappears; insects, smells, light and colours flow in and out.
Loop House combines several interventions on an Edwardian detached house. The clients, a family of five with parents in the creative sector and three lively boys, required a space that reflected their joyful, expansive personalities.
The rear extension has been partially rebuilt, insulated and finished with white tiles, creating wide openings supported by slender columns. The roof has been re-covered with slate tiles, more akin to the original structure, and extended to accommodate two new bedrooms on the upper floor. The extensions are deliberately minimalist, offering a stark contrast to the original building's detailed and colourful facade.
The main transformation on the ground floor is the creation of a central services core containing the stairs and cloakroom, around which a sequence of open spaces flows. These are marked by coloured thresholds and (sometimes) sliding doors, forming a continuous loop of living areas. A previously fragmented, dark, and series of small rooms is now a playful, bright, and spacious sequence of spaces, perfect for a game of tag or hide-and-seek, and providing endless variations for everyday life.
The original building albeit extended in 1985 was characterised by small and dark spaces with a central corridor. The extension was too shallow to work as a dining area and was fragmented by the original structure, which had a long, dark kitchen inside the outrigger. The ground floor's design draws inspiration from the Krefeld houses by Mies van der Rohe, where large, staggered openings strike a balance between a traditional sense of space (the room) and the openness and asymmetry of modern sensitivity. We combined this typology with the opportunity of a continuous circular layout around a services core. The lived experience is dynamic, with both children and adults moving through the space in an almost filmic manner, continually discovering new ways to interact.
On the upper levels, the layout is thoughtfully arranged to include three bathrooms, five bedrooms, and a utility room, much to the clients' delight.
The choice of spatial typology based on the room also meant a lesser structural intervention: by maintaining the structure of the rooms and avoiding the open plan we could be more understanding of the building’s qualities.
We took the same careful approach with the improvements to the house's energy efficiency, aiming to lower the building’s lifetime emissions, with a special focus on reducing emissions from the building process. The green roof and projected rain garden will greatly add to the biodiversity of the site
Our approach to retrofit aimed at maximising improvements in the building’s efficiency while minimising the intervention’s carbon footprint. We set out a strategy for the upgrade of the fabric in the early design stages. The areas most affected by the work – the rear extension, ground floor’s floor structure and roof, were all insulated and made airtight. All the windows were replaced with double-glazed units. The demolished material was offered to local reclamation yards for re-use and eventually recycled.
Energy Engine: The upgrade of the fabric has allowed us to replace the gas combination boiler with an air-source heat pump. Replacing the gas hob with induction has meant removing the gas supply altogether.
Biodiversity: The ground floor extension roof was detailed to and will soon become a green roof to further enhance the building’s thermal performance and biodiversity.
"Unagru understood what was important to us from our first meeting and they designed a house that we all love. The house was looking tired, it was closed off and dark. Now it is open and filled with light. The open plan space is divided with the clever use of striking portals. This allows the house to have a lovely flow whilst also retaining defined areas. Loop House is playful and joyful and we feel very lucky to call this our home.”
- Leo and Vici, 2023
Architect
Unagru Architecture Urbanism
Structural Engineer
Structures Made Easy
Contractor
House Fixers Limited
Photographer & Videographer
Tim Crocker
Video Editor
Leo King
Completion year
2023
Area
200 sqm
Project budget
< £500,000
Build It Award 2024
Shortlisted for Best Architect or Designer for a Renovation or Conversion Project
Open House Festival 2023
Contributor