Dragon Flat is a refurbishment project for a flat within a 1950s council block. It was built in a run-down area of London for low-income households after the war, the area has since been transformed into one of the most affluent in the city. The block retains its original concrete structure. The low floor-to-ceiling height of just below 2.4m also remained in the flat, and we needed a strategy to reconcile it. As with many London flats, complications with the separate ownership between the flats and their structure constrained our response to the client brief for a contemporary flat. The dual aspect of the flat was one of the given gifts, but due to the kitchen, dining, living, and stairwells being all subdivided, this gift wasn’t apparent. We liberated the entire lower level from its post-war austerity configuration by removing the non-load-bearing partitions through diligent, painstaking structural surveys.
Now the space is rich with natural light coming in various intensities throughout the day. The large-scale engraving of the River Thames draws attention away from the low ceiling space, and this wall-to-wall full-height cabinet unifies the space and corresponds to the corner sofa with the built-in projector screen. All utilities: kitchen, storage, seating, and toilet are set into the perimeter walls, leaving space in the middle for a floating perforated timber stair leading upstairs in the 1950′s original stair position. On the upstairs, we went against the norm of ′the higher the ceiling the better the space ′ and lowered the ceiling further instead of attempting to make it look higher than it actually was. The tatami bedroom is raised with a storage platform on the floor that leaves the new floor-to-ceiling height just around 2m, revealing a uniquely intimate space within the original council flat room size.
We also focused on surfaces within these constrained structures. OSB boards, which pay homage to the humble beginnings of this flat, are used as wallpaper, they are brass clipped and engraved. Unlike the Arts and Crafts movement, which rejected rapid technological advances, here we simply embraced the available technology as a tool. An army of engraved peony flowers on the walls was shaped out of our selection following AI prompts. Irrelevant to such a process, they calmly greet the real flower head of a peace lily in this intimate room.
On the floor below, we again use this everyday building material, OSB to form walls alongside large Carara marble slabs in a small toilet, the focus of all our efforts was to enrich the lives of occupants.
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