Tiverton Road

Queens Park, 2019

When we were first approached this project appeared barely feasible – our client wanted to develop a tiny backlands garage site to accommodate a partly subterranean, partly above ground exposed concrete house. The Construction of the below ground section of this house would always have been a huge challenge, but here this was amplified by the desire that the house interior would be entirely fair faced in-situ concrete.

Team: Architect: Takero Shimazaki Architects
Contractor: MK Special Projects
Specialist concrete input: David Bennett

Materials: Insitu Reinforced concrete
Loadbearing timber frame
Loadbearing perinsul thermal break pads

Photos: Anton Gorlenko

Design

To achieve a fully thermally broken interior concrete shell required the new internal fair faced concrete walls and slabs to sit within an outer loadbearing RC build-up of underpinning and retaining walls. The inner and outer skins work as a composite structure – supported off each other and providing lateral restraint to each other, all achieved by loadbearing thermally broken connections integrated into the visually exposed concrete build-up.

Build

Squeezed into a tight urban site, backing onto a railway, adjacent to a road and sitting directly over significant Thames Water Pipework made every step of construction a challenge and required the construction sequencing to be an inherent part of the design. Working with the contractor and architect we agreed jointing locations in the concrete which enabled efficient construction whilst maintaining the architectural intent.

Slowly, through a sequence of testing, sampling and collaboration with the contractor and architect we agreed specifications for the exposed concrete which allow the craft of the builder and nature of the material to be celebrated in the final building.

Completed Project