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This new Peckham house is a perfect example of how skill, patience and hard work can be combined to make an urban infill project happen. For architects in a crowded, high-priced city like London, mastering the art of their project type is a must.
This new build home was designed by Surman Weston, a firm founded by Tom Surman and Percy Weston in 2014 and included in our 2020 Architects Directory. In 2022, Surman Weston was awarded the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Award for his courteous and restrained space for Hackney Food Academy, as well as other recent projects including a smart Surrey pool house. Peckham House was not only designed by the firm but also developed, financed and built on a large scale by the office.
Peckham House: a generous London infill project
The team says this particular project was born out of a desire to “test our capabilities without customers.” After searching numerous property auctions to no avail, they stumbled upon the end-of-terrace site, a scrubby rectangle of land abandoned by the surrounding 1970s two-storey terrace development. It is owned by the council and has no existing planning permission; what followed was a frantic 30 days of design and submission to secure funding.
That was five years ago. It’s a bit unfair to say the project is progressing slowly, especially when it coincides with a pandemic and the birth of a new baby. But the architect’s decision to build as much of the house as possible himself, using only trusted friends and subcontractors, also added to the timeline.
However, the end result is a source of pride for this lengthy process, with details, materials and spatial arrangements all testament to meticulous quality control and preparation.
“It’s more difficult to decorate your own house than someone else’s,” admits Weston of the clean-cut new kitchen, made from painted and polished green moisture-resistant MDF. There are only two rooms on the first floor, plus a spacious hall and cloakroom. The house follows the line of the existing terrace, with a rectangular plan set within the pronounced curve of the garden fence, which follows the line of the walkway.
Walking through a front garden surrounded by plant boxes and a bike shop, the first sign is that something is different about the front facade, a masterful piece of accidental brickwork that dissolves at its highest point into an airy lattice that has been filled with plantings Plants poke out of the gaps and move down the walls. Neat arches conceal the recessed front door, with curved fanlights and illuminated house numbers; the geometry is precise but never precious.
The living room is a warm, friendly space with wooden joists and a floor made from end-grain wood blocks (offcuts from structural projects). A staircase leads to the dining room and kitchen, taking advantage of the site’s slight slope to maximize ceiling height. “We wanted to bring real generosity to the living space,” Weston says, pointing to the massive wooden beam that spans the opening between the two rooms—“the spine of the house.” With the assistance of Structural Studio engineers, the walls were specially thickened to accommodate the massive timbers and retain their original bark.
The main timber used is English larch, cut and sawn in Devon. “This is a modern house that draws on traditional craftsmanship,” said the architect, citing scarf joints and dowels that hold the wood together, without any bolts or other metal fasteners. A brick lattice covers some of the windows on the ground floor and first floor, providing privacy but also allowing them to be safely opened for ventilation in the summer. The rear garden echoes the form of the front garden, with Lydia D’Agostino Garden Design’s planting scheme visible through a gorgeous custom doorway with a large circular window.
The stairs are made of pine and CNC cut to fit the curves of the high-roof illuminated stairwell. The back of the wood was fireproofed using a Tyrolean flasher, a handheld device that provides a rough, natural texture to the surface. A winding blue railing – built with considerable back-and-forth by a local steel fabricator – leads to the first floor.
There are three modest bedrooms and a family bathroom with lime plaster walls throughout. Raised, curved ceilings and high-set windows add an unexpected feel. The plywood wardrobe in the master bedroom was dyed indigo to highlight the texture.
Up another staircase, past an old construction crane converted into a mute attendant, you reach the roof terrace, reached through a sliding, cork-covered hatch set within an existing aluminum greenhouse. This fun DIY revamp of a traditional rooftop lantern opens to a spacious roof garden complete with photovoltaic array and rainwater harvesting. Across the road, the concrete and brick ruggedness of Peckham Levels is clearly visible, but the new structure definitely holds its own.
Everywhere in Peckham House you’ll find details and finishes that could only have been achieved on site during construction. Weston admits, “Maybe it’s a little tempting to design too much, but we learned a lot and pushed the limits of what business people can do.”
Design and build may be growing in popularity among young architects, but the reality is that what you gain in first-hand application of design details and visceral experience of construction, you lose over time; Weston estimates that this house The design time was three times that of an equivalent project with an external client.
While the process was winding and ever-changing, one important factor remained constant: the house’s sustainable credentials. Construction and material waste is minimized, with offcuts reused wherever possible, while triple glazing and high levels of insulation are combined with photovoltaic arrays, air source heat pumps and mechanical ventilation heat recovery.
The house, now occupied by Weston and his young family, gives everyone a moment to pause before considering their next move. Regardless of where Sulman Weston decides to apply his self-building skills in the future, it will be difficult for the architect to let go of the creative freedom and richness of detail and materials displayed in Peckham.
SurmanWeston.com
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