cast house

Cast House is a new-build detached house in a suburban street in Clapham, south London.

The house shares the visual language of the pattern-book brick Edwardian houses, but it is designed in a contemporary idiom offering a distinct proposition.

The house borrows motifs from the surrounding neighbourhood to offer a contemporary interpretation of London’s Edwardian suburbs.  Precast concrete details have been used to echo the local 1930s architectural language, and stacking concrete volumes at ground, first floor and roof level open the house up to a relandscaped garden to the rear.

The neighbourhood is characterised by gable roofs, bay windows, tiered materiality and open porch entrances. Cast House combines these motifs in a composition of London stock brick and precast concrete, marrying bay windows with a recessed entrance porch.   

The entrance elevation is sensitively designed so that the house sits discreetly among its heritage neighbours, playfully responding to the established rhythm of the street. The rear façade is bolder in its design, presented as a cascading sequence of tiered cubic volumes which project out into the garden and a sunken patio. The two elevations are unified by a clear design rationale and sparing palette of materials, with brick and concrete interlocking throughout.

Photography: Gilbert McCarragher