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Photographer’s Studio
Photographer’s Studio
EBBA have designed a small photographer’s studio, nestled in a wooded garden. The building offers a tall gallery-like space that serves for both studio and domestic activities. The interior is defined by the construction of the building, connected with large openings to the surroundings. It’s main elevation is clad in timber and ceramic tiles that have a rough texture like the bark of the trees on the site.
Title: Photographer’s Studio
Location: London
Year: 2019
Client: Private
Type: Dwelling
Status: Planning granted
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Jacob Street
Jacob Street
EBBA completed the refurbishment to a warehouse in Bermondsey, turning a commercial unit into a bright and generous apartment. The studio was appointed to reimagine the arrangement of the tall loft space, maximising the use of natural light to make a calm and inviting interior.
The plan is configured to allow for a large open plan kitchen and living area where the clients can also work from, with the new bathrooms and bedrooms being enclosed behind a dark timber clad volume providing more intimate spaces to retire to. A step up and change in level adds to the transition between the two zones of the home. The layout follows the grid of the existing structure making well-proportioned rooms across the apartment.
The rich lining to the timber enclosure emphasises the way the volume is inserted into the space, helping to separate the different functioning zones of the apartment. The outer face of the walnut box facing towards the open side reveals a bold kitchen unit with deep cupboards, acting as a key feature in the living space.
Along one side there is continuous piece of joinery that acts as a library. The bedrooms and bathrooms with the use of cement tiles and a poured floor creates a tactile yet comfortable feel while bringing a sense of tranquillity through materials that complement the darker tones of the walnut elsewhere.
The overall result aims to maintain the character of the building by celebrating the existing steel structure, keeping it exposed and working around the frame to highlight the history of the warehouse. The project tries to make the most of the tall spaces and at the same time offer the opportunity for flexibility required to accommodate the clients’ active lives.
Title: Jacob St
Location: London
Year: 2022
Client: Private
Photographs: James Retief
Type: Dwelling
Status: Completed
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Stanhope
Stanhope
A robust project completed last year to enlarge a family home. Taking inspiration from Florentian palaces with heavy rusticated bases and big timber entrances, the rear facade now gives a certain grandeur to the house and allows the large openings to extend the sense of enclosed space to the paved section of garden. The interior plays between the large sculpted ceiling and the delicate column, providing space for an airy and well proportioned kitchen/dining area. The project was realised on an incredibly tight budget while still managing to deliver a sense of craft through careful detailing and robust materials.
Title: Stanhope
Location: London
Year: 2021
Client: Private
Photographs: James Retief
Type: Dwelling
Status: Completed
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Gerrards Cross
Gerrards Cross
We are developing proposals for two new homes sharing a likeness in plan yet responding to the needs of each family. Solid walls create the sense of a carved interior with joinery sitting between to line and break up spaces. The buildings reflect a tradition of Georgian architecture while details take inspiration from the local Arts & Crafts houses, an amalgamation of influences that result in a robust contemporary proposition.
Title: Gerrards Cross
Location: London
Year: 2022
Client: Private
Type: Dwelling
Status: in progress
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Townhouse
Townhouse
EBBA have been working on an ambitious scheme for a prominent corner site to provide three units over a showroom. The building takes on the proportions of the traditional townhouse typology while its form addresses the constraints of the plot. A bay projects out to mimic the buildings next door while strong banding in different brickwork helps to break down the scale.
Title: Townhouse
Location: London
Year: 2021
Client: Private
Type: Dwelling
Status: in progress
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Bankside Loft
Bankside Loft
EBBA recently completed an apartment refurbishment in Bankside. The open plan arrangement is intended to provide a bright space for flexible living and working. As part of the refurbishment walls were removed helping to open up the apartment, revealing the molded concrete frame of the existing building. Either side of the structure sit two mezzanines that make use of the tall ceilings, offering more private areas for sleeping and study above.
Functional areas such as kitchen and bathroom sit under the mezzanines with in built storage maximizing the use of the space. The plan is designed for cooking and working on one side while living and sleeping on the other, with potential for most areas to be interchanged through loose furniture. The project uses an economical yet high grade pine as the primary material for the construction of the structural elements, stairs, paneling and joinery, finished in a white stain that helps to bring out the grain in the timber.
Panels wrap one side of the living space making a more intimate experience and produce a sense of enclosure. The fabrication methods, from the joints to the interlocking members give the project a clear expression of how the structures are made. An existing timber floor was restored and re-stained giving a natural tone to the apartment while the red ceramic tiles in the kitchen add to the warmth of the neutral space.
Robust light fixtures and discrete cupboards throughout complement the vertical lines and paired back detailing. Overall the result is a compact yet flexible loft apartment that accommodates a modern way of living.
Title: Bankside Loft
Location: London
Year: 2020
Client: Private
Photographs: Lorenzo Zandri and Benni Allan
Type: Dwelling
Status: Completed
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Housing Around a Courtyard
Housing Around a Courtyard
EBBA are working on a multi-unit housing scheme in East London. The project is based on four blocks shifted and rotated around a central courtyard, providing 6 new dwellings on a prominent corner site. The overall massing helps to achieve a carefully considered arrangement to ensure double and triple aspects with new views across and between the blocks.
The materiality and form is intended to be robust and aims to speak to the primary typology of housing in the area, dominated by a suburban character of masonry construction and steep roofs. The sculpted shapes and opposing angles of each block help to create a rich ensemble of buildings that frame the junction of two streets.
Title: Housing Around a Courtyard
Location: London
Year: 2020
Client: Private
Type: Dwelling
Status: in progress
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Jesus College
Jesus College
While at Niall McLaughlin Architects, Benni was privileged to work on a range of projects including the renovation of West Court, a Grade II listed building for Jesus College in Cambridge. The project was successful in achieving a building that is both grounded in its place while offering a renewed image of the College onto the city. Benni worked on the scheme from concept stage, supporting the project through planning and across two of its main build stages. He gained experience of working with listed buildings, executing internal and external packages during the renovation of the original building.
In addition, Benni was involved in the design of the new entrance tower on Jesus Lane and supported the design of the facade of its adjacent building with a rhythmic timber insert of bays between existing brick piers. A new 180-seater auditorium was inserted within the extensively remodelled structure as a golden timber-lined box, designed to support the College’s repute as a centre for research. Above, a suite of long and short-term accommodation completes the court with different treatments that respond to a private condition and the opposite urban streetscape.
Project realised by Niall McLaughlin Architects.
Title: Jesus College
Location: Cambridge
Year: 2017
Client: Jesus College
Type: Cultural
Status: Completed
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Artist Studio & Archive
Artist Studio & Archive
The conversion of an outbuilding for Flat Time House forms part of a phased approach for the future of the gallery. EBBA have developed proposals for the small yet ambitious gallery in South London, taking inspiration from the works of the founder John Latham. As part for the first phase, EBBA have created a new artist studio and archive for the gallery’s growing research and events programme.
These proposals look to resolve some issues with the use of the spaces on the ground floor, by creating better connections to the existing gallery, establishing a new research centre with a store for the large collection of artworks. The future works will consider how to connect the outbuilding with the house through a landscaping proposal. The project is conceived as a series of abstracted and sympathetic revisions that will allow the users to interact with the gallery in a new way.
The spirit of the new spaces take cues from the existing house and the works of John Latham, seeing the interventions as “attachments” that respect the existing conditions of the gallery. Understanding the house as a number of events and accumulations, the new elements are conceived to be read as such. These small projects are an add-on that speak of the materiality of layers, building on the importance of the house as an artwork. Reuse of the demolished interior structures become new workbenches for the artist studio and rubble from previous alterations are ground into aggregate for bespoke concrete fixtures. The history of the mezzanine is retained as an imprint in the floor where the legs used to sit.
Title: Artists Studio & Archive
Location: London
Year: 2020
Client: Flat Time House
Photographs: Lorenzo Zandri
Type: Cultural
Status: Completed
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Modern Cottage
Modern Cottage
Dealing with a restricted and unlevelled site, EBBA developed a proposal to provide a new purpose built residential unit on an end of terrace cottage site in Lancashire. The massing was informed by a rigorous design process and in-depth study of the existing plot, which included three changes in level and the limitations of working on greenbelt land.
The brief asked for a design that was simple yet could offer better connections to the gardens with a more open and accessible internal configuration. A generous sitting room with adjacent dining area and the kitchen make for a spacious ground floor while upstairs offers an ironing room, a large bedroom with views across the countryside and the ensuite, which altogether fits an airy and inviting home for the elderly owner. The layout is designed to allow for easy mobility and has been future-proofed to allow the installation of a lift should it be required.
The form itself was a take on the old Lancashire cottage typology. The massing takes the traditional form, shifted and setback, forming an edge to line up with the plot on which the existing garage sits. The elevation is restrained on the street side while larger north facing openings and side windows create connections to the garden and the landscaped courtyard at the side. The side garden becomes a topography of steps, swirles and flower patches, an oasis between two gables ends of terraced houses where the client can carry out her daily rituals as a keen gardener.
Title: Modern Cottage
Location: Manchester
Year: 2017
Client: Private
Type: Dwelling
Status: Completed
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