Preview - East London Stillness

The brief was almost nothing — which is my favourite kind. The client, a composer, wanted a place to think. No television. No dining table large enough for more than four people. A kitchen that could disappear when not in use. A place to hear the rain.

I spent three months on the plan before I touched the materials. The apartment is a Victorian railway arch conversion, and the original brickwork dictated almost everything: its warmth, its weight, its particular darkness at the far end of the space. I worked with that darkness rather than fighting it. The sleeping loft was my proposal — it meant we could keep the ground floor entirely clear, a single volume of air that the composer could move through freely.

Every piece of furniture here either came from Japan or was made by hand in London. The shoji screens are a contemporary interpretation — I worked with a joiner in Bermondsey on the proportions for eight weeks until they were right. The limestone is from a quarry in Portland. Nothing here was bought new from a showroom. I don't know how to work any other way.

Credits