St John's Wood Villa

: Maro Construction, Edward Rutherfoord Architect

Our renovation of a Grade II listed late-Georgian home in St John’s Wood, London, required restoring and reinstating architectural details including the beautiful, curved gallery staircase and the original window shutters while adding a contemporary twist with new joinery & modern furnishings. The brief was to create a bright family home with open plan living, large functional kitchen and entertaining space. We experimented with several General Arrangement layouts for each floor. Showing the client multiple orientations of where the kitchen would be situated really helped to govern how the space would be used day-to-day while providing a functional space for relaxing and entertaining. We then developed the agreed GA design, confirmed the structural works, submitted a Listed Building application and created a scope of building works and detailed specification of finishes. A key challenge was working with Listed Building Control to retain the integrity of the property, while providing a new layout for modern family living. We had to keep the existing footprint of individual rooms but were able to create new openings to create a flow through the house, with duel light aspects in the main living areas. With the help of plaster specialists, we selected coving for each room to ensure they were the correct period for the property and reproduced the original features for the architraves and skirting boards. For us, the project’s success came down to the relationship with the client and ensuring they had a beautiful, yet functional family home.