Shouldhan Street Au centre de Londres, l'agence d'architecture Henning Stummel a réalisé cette extension d'une maison de style géorgien. Un volume élancé, en rupture, relie les 3 étages existants et accueille une salle de bains. Sur ce projet, les architectes nous précisent: "Shouldhan Street - RIBA Building of the Year, London Region, 2005 The motivation for this extension was to restore the original layout to a Georgian townhouse in central London. This required placing all the bathroom facilities into their own structure tacked onto the house and accessed via extending the openings to the existing fireplaces on the first three levels. Guided by the historical precedent of the late Georgian period, we proposed the structure to be constructed in timber. This also satisfied a planning authority desire for the works to be 'reversible' in the sense that one could restore the house to its original state if required. Despite this logic and precedent, the planners required that the extension have their concept of a Georgian aesthetic which hinged crucially on vertical fenestration. As this is largely unnecessary for bathrooms, we decided to 'not have windows' amd incororporated translucent perspex strips into the ship-lap cladding, disguised by placement and colour. The result is remarkable. By day the interior, which is seamlessly clad in perspex, is lit by the abstract 'non-windows' and by night the effect reverses so that the exterior becomes a lantern feature in the garden. This project is an example of necessity bearing invention and proof of how obstacles can be seen as potentials when dealing with projects in historically sensitive areas. Permission to build this project required one and a half years of negotiation and was finally realised through an appeal process. However, in the end, the project was awarded the RIBA Building of the Year, London Region (2005) , was short-listed for the Stephen Lawrence Prize, and has been broadcast and published extensively in domestic and international media." Pour en savoir plus, visitez le site d'Henning Stummel. Sources: Contemporist & Henning Stummel Architects Précédent Suivant
