Walmer Yard London W11 (Notting Hill) 🔘

[Celerity]

https://themodernhouse.com/sales-list/walmer-yard









“A touchstone of the relationship between pragmatist and poet” – Peter Salter

A conquest of exquisite beauty and poetic inspiration, this two-bedroom home is one of four sublime interlocking houses discreetly situated around an open courtyard by the greenery of Avondale Park, between Notting Hill and Holland Park. The four houses are the first residential buildings in Britain by the architectural educator and designer Peter Salter and the project was the winner of the RIBA London Award in 2017. It is a manipulation of light and dark, of clay and concrete among myriad other materials, formed together by master builders and craftsmen from the wonderful organic drawings of Salter. Exceeding 2,300 sq ft over four storeys, with two private roof terraces and secure underground parking, the house offers a captivating series of versatile living spaces and the rare opportunity to acquire a revered landmark of recent architectural history.









The Building

Walmer Yard replaces a Victorian warehouse, built on the brickfields between the 1840s Norland Estate and the Regency terraces of Ladbroke Grove. Nodding to the patchworks of lock-ups and stable yards and the functional mewses of post-war decades, while uniting the spectrum between modest facades and those grander compositions of Portland Road, the development offers a subtle, stealthy elevation, barely hinting at the architectural brilliance within.









Cast from in situ poured concrete, structured around rectangular and elliptical stairwells, each house fits within an interlocking plan arranged around an intimate central courtyard, oriented to receive sun from the south. The grouping evokes a proximity and communalism reminiscent of 17th-century planning, or its inspiration in part: the Lombardian commune of Sabionetta. The layering of the shutters also provides privacy for each residence, and a changeable brise soleil, allowing shadow and soft light to be regulated internally as desired.









The Tour

Entry from the subtle façade on Walmer Road is through a series of steps enclosed on three sides by projecting elements from the two houses with street frontages. The approach through bronze entry gates provides a perspective that straddles defined eras of design, from neo-medieval through to modernist, postmodernist and expressionist. The external courtyard has been designed as if it were a finely panelled internal room and was inspired by the timber-lined council chamber of Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice. End-grain oak blocks run underfoot, their natural grain a visual delight and their materiality a great absorber of footfall. Shutters too act as deflectors of sound and work with the acoustic render to degrade airborne noise. Low-level light fittings avoid light pollution at higher points of the façade and concrete benches are incorporated for a variety of purposes, be that the somewhere to place shopping while fumbling for keys, a spot to adorn with plant pots, or simply a place to sit and converse with neighbours or friends.

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[bucolic_frolic]

1. Thanks for the post

it wouldn't be my taste, i'd get claustrophobia, but it's interesting to see how architects are grabbing housing space in innovative ways.

What's with the wood panels on the outside? all crooked seems to me. Maybe they just hang and float? wood stove? or main heat?

There's a renovation in a town I go to, must have been about a 1900 house, more than quadrupled for bricked up factory about 1925, now they've gutted it and installing new windows. I think it's going to be apartments. So much need for housing with lower rents.

[Ponietz]

3. Outside wooden panels are the "brise soleil" (sunshade)?

[marble falls]

2. Amazing. Over and underdone at the same time. The amount of decoration emphasizes the rawness of the concrete ...

... raw as in a not very nicely finished sort of way.