Category: Projects

08:10: arrive, inspect, sniff the foundations. 08:40: nap in the foundations. 09:30: the contractor, a small and anxious hamster named Doug, presents the schedule. We eat the schedule.

11:00: structural review, conducted by sitting upon the roof. The roof sinks 6 centimetres, which we judge ‘expressive.’ 13:45: a courier arrives with another box, which is promptly absorbed into the design as a garden shed. 15:20: client weeps, in what we believe is joy. 16:00: all depart. The duplex remains, slightly flatter than the drawings, and wholly loved. Doug has requested a reference letter.

The Hollis household had a wardrobe and a dream. We transformed the wardrobe into a loft, on the principle that every top shelf is a penthouse waiting for its first resident.

The Annex features a hinged hatch, an ascent of three upholstered steps, and a lookout post that overlooks the dresser, the doorway and, for three hours a day, the dog. Tenant Marmalade Hollis has described the experience as ‘regal, but with echoes.’ The build cost 52 treats in materials and a stiff negotiation about a particular sock. We call it a quiet triumph.

Mr. and Mrs. Hargreaves, a pair of tabbies of modest means and immodest tastes, asked for ‘something with flow.’ We delivered a two storey stack with an internal ramp, a mezzanine for judging, and a reading nook that reads nothing.

The facade is a restrained dialogue between brown and slightly different brown. Principal designer Odalys Mewgan insisted on a letterbox slot at eye level, so the household may observe the world without participating in it. Construction took four days and 212 strips of tape. The clients have since declined to leave, which we regard as a review.