The prospect of retirement doesn’t just signal the end of a career; it offers the chance to recalibrate and re-prioritize in life.
7 London Houses We Love
July 27, 2012
Friday marked the start of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England. In celebration of the city's finest works of residential design, we've collected seven homes—including one by starchitect David Adjaye and a mind-boggling polychromatic residece by Ab Rogers— in which we wouldn't mind spending a night.
For photographer Ed Reeve, building his own house had been a lifelong dream. When he met architect David Adjaye, and found the perfect plot of land in London’s De Beauvoir Town, Reeve knew his time had come. The Sunken House, so-named for its excavated site, is a dark, cedar-clad cube in a stuffy part of town, where weathered brick and clay chimney pots are more common than modernist angles.—Max Fraser
Photo by
Originally appeared in All Clad
Corporate high-flyers and admitted neat freaks Bruce Thatcher and Kirsty Leighton couldn’t handle the chaos anymore. With two small boys and demanding jobs (he works in hedge funds, she’s a PR executive), they craved order, light, and space but were prepared to settle for a washing machine. In came architect William Tozer with a plan that inserted clean white planes into the envelope of their Victorian terrace house in London. Christened the Composite House, this renovation collates Tozer’s decade of experience making small partial renovations into a complete overhaul that builds on, rather than obliterates, its Victorian origins. As the sky darkened on a rainy afternoon, Bruce and Kirsty showed us around.—Nicola Twilley
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Originally appeared in Composite Index
On an eight-foot-wide site in London, architect Luke Tozer cleverly squeezed in a four-story home equipped with rain-water-harvesting and geothermal systems.—Dominic Bradbury
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Originally appeared in A Slender Geothermal Cottage in London
In a London house that’s flooded with light, a spiral staircase provides a prismatic path from floor to floor.—Jordan Kushins
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Originally appeared in A Family Goes Somewhere Over the Rainbow
A digitally fabricated design in London boasts secret compartments for coralling the trappings of a modern workspace.—Diana Budds
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Originally appeared in Hidden in Plain View
British artist Maisie Broadhead elevates the nuisance of an unsightly lamp cord to over-the-mantel art with this clever bit of DIY design.—Aaron Britt
Originally appeared in Striking a Cord
With no space to waste, London-based designers Kim Colin and Sam Hecht turned a 1924 garage into the perfect home product.—Amelia Thorpe
Photo by
Originally appeared in Garage Brand
For photographer Ed Reeve, building his own house had been a lifelong dream. When he met architect David Adjaye, and found the perfect plot of land in London’s De Beauvoir Town, Reeve knew his time had come. The Sunken House, so-named for its excavated site, is a dark, cedar-clad cube in a stuffy part of town, where weathered brick and clay chimney pots are more common than modernist angles.—Max Fraser Photo by Ed Reeve.
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