Calmly Removed – FOS House by EBD Architects

In embedding an intuitive sense of calm and retreat, FOS House connects seamlessly with its surrounding garden and natural elements to provide an extension of the home proper. EBD Architects extrudes the previous exterior constraints of the home, pulling apart planes and inserting glazing between joins to let light in.

Invigorated through a purposed connection to the natural, FOS House transforms a traditional 19th century Kensington home into a crisp and light-filled family residence. When addressing the need to bring natural light into existing narrow cottage structures, the answer typically lies above. In this case, the approach taken focused on balancing and creating connections both outward and upward as a core experience of the home. Being able to see the sky, stars and moving weather throughout the seasons formed an important part of the brief, countered by those supplementary gestures to illuminate the home. EBD Architects carefully sculpted the quaint residence and its limited proportions into a perceptively larger series of connected spaces with an outward focus.

Maintaining privacy and openness feels almost at odds with one another, however by shifting the openings to the upper planes, interesting shards of light enter the home and animate the spaces by shifting throughout the day with the moving sun.

Underpinning each of the new interventions of the home is the want to create a space of enduring calm. Homes become a place to disengage from the world and are where we immerse ourselves into our own sanctuaries. Taking its name from the Greek word for ‘light’ and reinforcing light’s priority as a core value in the design, FOS House instils calm with the soft introduction of natural illumination in unexpected places.

A shared and open living, dining and kitchen space extends to the rear of the site, organically funnelling movement toward the gathering space. The volume is deliberately generous, with glazing to two sides to reinforce the connection beyond the built elements. Almost as if the vertical and horizontal planes were lifted outward, glazing is added in strips between the joins to bring in light in a less traditional or expected way. Maintaining privacy and openness feels almost at odds with one another, however by shifting the openings to the upper planes, interesting shards of light enter the home and animate the spaces by shifting throughout the day with the moving sun. The skylights become sculptural at the same time, crafting the interior planes as they open to allow connections outward.

Taking its name from the Greek word for ‘light’ and reinforcing light’s priority as a core value in the design, FOS House instils calm with the soft introduction of natural illumination in unexpected places.

FOS House carries a consistently cool and subdued palette throughout both the old and new. By reshaping traditional approaches, EBD Architects added elements of intrigue in the process. As storied homes often bring with them layered pasts and ornate detailing, recalibrating the structure to capture both a sense of its original character whilst preparing for its future was key.