Words Nell Card
Photography Rachel Ferriman
This home on Cicely Roadway is the lockdown job of Tom Surman and Percy Weston, the creators of Surman Weston, a clothing just recently identified by The Designers’ Journal as one of the very best young emerging practices in the UK today. The duo developed your house on a triangle of lawn that had no preparation approval when they purchased it, on the understanding that Percy would live here with his young household– partner Rhian Sutcliffe and three-year-old Ellis– till the set accepted offer. “When it’s your own job, the entire procedure of establishing the style is practically unlimited– and this absolutely wasn’t its very first model,” confesses Tom. “However we’re truly delighted with how it has actually exercised.”
The “heavy yet light, ruthless yet crafted” home functions generous repaired glazed panels that engulf natural light. Accompanying narrow apertures– skillfully hidden behind hit-and-miss brickwork– offer natural ventilation without interfering with the tidy lines of the outside. A roofing light crowning structure highlights the tactility of the internal products while drawing you to the leading flooring. Here, behind a moving cork hatch, is “the cherry on the top”: an indoor-outdoor greenhouse-like glass space for all seasons.
Tom: “We purchased this plot in 2018 at auction from Southwark Council. Percy and I have actually understood each other for 18 years and we have actually interacted for 12 of them. Because entire time, it’s the most stressed I have actually ever seen him …”
Percy: “I was persuaded we weren’t going to get it, so I simply put my hand up at the auction. And after that we won it and I believed: “Oh, shit …” It was the most dangerous thing we have actually ever done– putting cash on a plot of land without preparing approval. Plus, we had not developed something at this scale in the past, so it was a total leap of faith. At the exact same time, we were truly delighted to be our own customers– and we have actually both constantly taken pleasure in making and being hands on. This was our chance to really evaluate that as a practice.”
Tom: “Externally, we have actually attempted to fix up the surrounding architecture. From the front of your house you can see the back of Peckham Levels– a relatively brutalist previous multistorey parking lot with a concrete frame and hit-and-miss panels. There’s likewise a timeless, more crafted Victorian balcony neighboring and, straight next door, a balcony of practical, nearly detail-less homes integrated in the late ’70s.
” As an outcome, the kind of this home is relatively monolithic, however the brickwork is extremely uncommon. Referencing the Victorian balcony, we have actually utilized handmade York bricks in a Flemish bond. As you rise the structure, the header bricks are slowly set even more and even more back, which produces a patterned relief that assists liquify the monolithic kind. By the time you reach the roofing system balcony, higher spaces appear in the brickwork to form a hit-and-miss screen.
” Since it’s an end balcony, your house has windows on 3 sides, and each space has a big, set glazed pane and a narrow opening window hid behind a hit-and-miss screen. Day or night, you can have the windows open and your house stays completely safe and secure. The narrow windows are frosted, which softens the look of the brickwork and, as the sun tracks around the structure, it casts beautiful shadows on the internal walls. We have actually likewise integrated a roofing light down into the stairwell, which draws light into the centre of the strategy, highlighting the textures in the entryway.”
Percy: “In the corridor and living areas, recycled blockwork walls have actually been covered with a layer of lime slurry, which produces a soft, pillowy texture. It includes visual interest to the area, however it likewise reveals how the structure was really built. We were both thinking about producing something that initially appears extremely basic however, the more you enter it, the more richness and information you find.”
Tom: “The entire home is just 106sqm and rather a great deal of that area is offered to the generous entryway, that makes such a distinction to everyday living. The area works truly tough: there’s a bathroom under the stairs, a basic shop cabinet, a coat cabinet and a shoe action with storage integrated into the foot of the staircase. Both Percy and I have actually survived on canal boats, so we value how essential storage is.”
Percy: “We desired your house to feel abundant, which is why we prepared the generous floor-to-ceiling heights in the home and kitchen area. Part of the style procedure had to do with attempting to get rid of the requirement for steel, so anywhere possible we have actually utilized English larch sourced from a farm in Devon. We have actually had a great deal of enjoyable explore craft. In the ceiling joists, for instance, we have actually produced headscarf joints with screwless mendings. Once again, the joists are exposed so the building of the structure is legible.”
Tom: “The end-grain wood block flooring in the living-room is made from the offcuts of those lumbers. That sort of information is the outcome of being here on website, seeing the quantity of prospective waste and having the ability to experiment.”
Percy: “The interiors are a hash of designs, which we’re definitely great with. I believe it is necessary a home is totally free to end up being an expression of the characters who live there. We have actually made some bespoke shelving that will stay with your house when we ultimately offer, however there are likewise things like my granny’s chair, and art by loved ones, including my partner, Rhian, and my mum, who was a painter and ceramicist. She died twenty years back and I acquired a great deal of her work. Previously, I have not lived anywhere huge enough to show it; it was psychological taking her pieces out of storage and lastly having the ability to deal with them.”
Tom: “We have actually presented colour with the blue balustrade of the staircase, which was made by regional producers. The greatly textured underside has actually been covered in lime, which we used utilizing a rendering device called a Tyrolean flicker. The structure of the staircase ends up being more fragile as you rise towards the roofing system balcony, which is gotten in through the greenhouse by means of a moving cork hatch.
” The greenhouse is a really flexible indoor-outdoor area. In the summertime, the hatch can be exposed to draw hot air up out of the home, drawing light below above as it does. In the winter season, the greenhouse imitates a winter season garden. Even on cooler days, you can show up here for coffee in the early morning or supper at night; it’s a genuine sanctuary in the city.”
Percy: “The surrounding balcony has generous planters and multi-stem silver birch trees. The plants have actually begun to grow through the hit-and-miss panels and topple down the façade of the structure, which assists soften the brickwork. Ellis enjoys it up here: he utilizes the water butt to offer the plants a beverage– and collects all the thoroughly planted bulbs …
” I show up here in the early morning since that’s when the sun turns up over the trees beyond. It’s an exceptionally area that we have actually truly taken pleasure in as a household. When the time pertains to leave, I will absolutely miss this area one of the most.”
