This self-build project for the practice director Jake Edgley?s own family home, was initiated, designed and contracted by Edgley Design. The house was awarded a RIBA London award 2015 and shortlisted for the Stephen Lawrence Prize 2015. Photography by Jack Hobhouse.

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The concept for this backland house, completed in Summer 2014, began with a 100 year old pear tree, a remnant of the site?s history as a Victorian fruit orchard. The house has been built around this tree, creating an internal courtyard that brings light and air to the centre of the plan, while turning the house inward to remain private from the surrounding terraced houses.
The building rests on pile foundations to prevent damage to the trees and has a structural diagram of concrete external walls to the ground floor, where the walls meet the ground and are exposed to the weathering of nature and occupants, to provide a robust finish. The first floor is constructed as a single storey, lightweight, timber framed box spanning these walls, with two central concrete staircores to provide lateral stability and create dramatic, naturally lit spaces from the rooflights above. We wanted to preserve the character of the site and evoke its history through the building, which has been designed to blend into its wooded backland context. To this end there is a simple aesthetic concept to emphasise the vertical articulation of the building, with views th...