Blackheath Garden Studio
Context plan
The Garden Studio represents a second phase of our house project for two contemporary artists at Kidbrooke Grove in Blackheath. It is sited on a triangular plot to the north of the existing house and accommodates an art studio and a separate garden store.
Ground floor plan
The Garden Studio is conceived as a simple trapezoidal block with a stepped roof that reflects the volumes of the rooms inside. The studio space is elevated, with a raised floor and foundations that accommodate existing tree roots. Large sliding glazed doors provide access and a vantage point for views across the garden. The studio is accessed from a timber deck that inflects around an existing ornamental tree.
Garden Studio side elevation
The studio is to be faced in pigmented wood-cement ‘Viroc’ panels of a regular module together with hardwood-framed windows painted to match.
The boards are detailed with a stepped joint to avoid a completely flat elevation and to provide some subtle variation in colour and tone as the viewing angle changes when moving around the building.
Viroc cladding on Brownlow Theatre by Jonathan Tuckey Design, 2020
2019–
Workspace
New build
Current
24 m²
£75,000
Private
Engineers HRW
The Garden Studio represents a second phase of our project for two contemporary artists at Kidbrooke Grove in Blackheath. It is sited on a triangular plot to the north of the existing house and accommodates an art studio and a separate garden store.
The Garden Studio is conceived as a simple trapezoidal block with a stepped roof that reflects the volumes of the rooms inside. The studio space is elevated, with a raised floor and foundations that accommodate existing tree roots. Large sliding glazed doors provide access and a vantage point for views across the garden. The studio is accessed from a timber deck that inflects around an existing ornamental tree.
The studio is to be faced in pigmented wood-cement ‘Viroc’ panels of a regular module together with hardwood-framed windows painted to match.
The boards are detailed with a stepped joint to avoid a completely flat elevation and to provide some subtle variation in colour and tone as the viewing angle changes when moving around the building.
Nick Hill Architects is an RIBA chartered architectural practice and design studio based in London founded in 2017.
Through a series of early built projects the practice has established a particular sensibility for the characterful use of materials; how they are combined and the care with which they are detailed – whether objects, room interiors, individual buildings or the public spaces in between.
Our design is led by thinking about how people experience objects, buildings or places. Charles Eames said the role of a designer is like that of a thoughtful host who always anticipates the needs of their guests. We hold this to be true not just for the practical or everyday, but for the poetic, the delightful, or what Louis Kahn called the ‘unmeasurable’.
At a time of climate crisis and rapid demographic change, we find ourselves designing for a future that is increasingly uncertain. In response we are committed to finding ways of making and repairing that are both resilient and adaptable, with an economy of means as a central tenet in all projects, no matter the size or budget.
Nick has twenty five years’ experience working in architectural practices in the UK and in Hong Kong.
For more than ten years he was an Associate Director at David Chipperfield’s office in London, leading a series of high profile projects including two acclaimed new public galleries, the Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire and Turner Contemporary in Margate, as well as the rebuild and refurbishment of Hotel Café Royal on Regent Street, and the realisation of a masterplan for the Royal Academy of Arts campus on Piccadilly.
From 2017 he worked as a consultant to Witherford Watson Mann Architects, drawing on his experience working with public galleries and historic buildings, he led their major refurbishment of The Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House until its completion in 2021. The project was shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize 2023.
Nick has been an invited critic and guest lecturer at architecture schools across the UK and in 2013 and 2014 was a guest lecturer at the Graduate School of Design in Harvard. He has served on competition juries and in 2013 was chair of the RIBA Awards jury for the East England region. He is currently an examiner for Part 3 professional studies at the Architectural Association School of Architecture.
- Kam Bava
- Neil Ditte
- Joseph Elbourn
- Anna Molodij
- Eimear O'Brien
- Carolina Thorbert
- Louise Trodden
- Andy Wakefield
A selection of reference images which inspire the practice’s work.
We welcome speculative applications sent as hard copy CVs with examples of work by post, or by email to info@nickhillarchitects.com (maximum 10mb).
Nick Hill Architects
Unit 4 The Old Stable House
53–55 North Cross Road
London
SE22 9ET
info@nickhillarchitects.com
+44 7824 463889
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