Cruickshank Street is a new build house on the site of a derelict garage in the Amwell Street area of Islington, London, due to complete on site in December 2008.
We inherited the project from architect developers, Envelope, who had succeeded in gaining a change of use for the site, and permission for a three bed house with a split level arrangement, dropping half a level from the front of the house to the rear.
We redesigned the house internally, taking out the split level to create a three storey house over basement, ground and first, to create a more open plan and accessible house, with the living space and garden on the entrance level.
The principal challenge of the house was that the site while excellently located, was extremely long and thin. Difficult sites however often force interesting design solutions: it's not possible to create good spatial experience with conventional design, and the design of the house often arises directly from the constraints of the site rather than through the imposition of willful forms or layouts- these projects have to work hard to succeed, and it is this challenge which hones a strong design.
Only a very limited amount of glass is allowed along boundary lines for privacy and fire reasons. This meant that light needed to be brought in through the roof of the house as well as the front and back. The stair forms a three storey high lightwell, with opening glazed roofs that flood the centre of the building with natural light. They also open for ventilation, which draws stale air up through the building as hot air rises, naturally ventilating the building- this is known as stack effect ventilation. I feel strongly that air conditioning in our climate, particularly of residential buildings, is grossly wasteful, and the building is designed so that all rooms have at least one high level vent panel for fresh air, which combined with the stair to expel stale air will cool and ventilate the building naturally.
A second smaller lightwell drops from the rear yard into the basement to bring light and air to the master bedroom. This lightwell is open both to the bedroom and the ensuite bathroom, creating a private, atmospheric and spatially luxurious bedroom stretching half the length of the basement.
Aesthetically speaking, the design evokes the concept that in our changing environment we need to rediscover the delights of natural materials that weather and age, and of solid buildings with carefully framed views and controlled natural light, in opposition to the slick, glassy and flimsy aesthetic that symbolises the high tech age of recent architecture. I also believe that 'eco bling'- the tendency to use high tech gagets to claim an eco design that is the successor to high tech- rarely pays environmentally. We need houses that are located sustainably, organised to allow sustainable living, built using sustainable materials, and designed to last- a high tech eco building which lasts only 30 years leaves a huge environmental footprint. Often a simpler, low tech construction and ethos is more environmental, as well as creating buildings designed to be a sensory pleasure.
Working around a minimal pallet of walnut and birch ply, almost every item of joinery in the building has been designed and built from scratch, from the solid walnut windows with integrated doors and vents, to the sculpturally composed shelving and cupboards in every room in the house. The stair has been designed as a sliver of walnut rising from basement to first floor with delicate glass handrails, with a perspex chandelier designed by the architect dropping 12m through the centre.
From a technical point of view, the two boundaries were only 4 metres apart, and this meant the house needed to make maximum use of the width of the site. This led to the adoption of a specialist piling system developed in Germany by Ishubeck Titan, which uses thin sacrificial screw piles. These 75mm piles can be accurately placed at 600mm centres, and retain the soil while the basement is excavated. Once this is complete reinforcment is welded directly to these piles, allowing structural walls to be constructed very close to the boundary- around 250mm overall against perhaps 750 for a standard concrete pile, with a huge reduction in concrete (which while often unavoidable to a degree underground, has poor environmental credentials)
For the superstructure, we used SIPS (structural insulated panels) made offsite in Devon. These are insulation sandwiched between two sheets of timber board, which is then factory machined to a high tolerance before being brought to site. The resulting panels are very quick to install (around two weeks, which helps with neighbour relations on tricky sites), good value, and all with excellent environmental performance- the building is effectively built out of solid insulation.
All in all this building shows that careful design combined with modern timber based construction techniques can create exciting and functional space on the most unpromising sites, all within the budgets of mainstream developers. While the building was spec built, we believe it would do justice to the most discerning and adventurous self builder.
