This project is for the refurbishment of a neo-gothic cottage in Fulham Cemetery and the construction of a new extension which houses a kitchen, dining and living room with a basement that contains a swimming pool, media room, guest bedrooms, wine store and ancillary spaces.

A garden wall gives privacy from the cemetery with small gardens arranged around the extension to maximise views out and light coming in. The new extension sets up a dialogue with the neo-Gothic cottage by being built in a contemporary language of architecture, and also by deploying the new work in a way that allows an altered reading of the old. For example a “moat” is extended along one side of the cottage so that it gives the impression of a fortified manor house.

The building and gardens as a whole become a series of connected volumes and voids recalling the house of the great gothic revivalist Pugin and the ideal settlement he planned at Ramsgate. The extension is built of Bath stone to match the cottage with zinc and sedum roofs.

Watch