Residential

While working on the redevelopment of a residential property we were also asked to design an outbuilding which the owner's son, a musician, could use to practice and record music. The resultant structure took the form a black box, metaphoric in its appearance it draws on the common intellectual tool in modern science and mathematics, representing not the method of alteration in process but the contrast between the two stages of input and output.

Inspiration was also taken from the Russian Avant-Garde artist Malevich who laid the foundations of the Suprematist movement. Many of his compositions were made up of simple, geometric figures, coloured in black against a white background and vice versa. This dualist process was after transformed into a series of compositions in which these elements interact between themselves, following a strict code of architectural principles.

Residing in a rear garden in Cricklewood, North London, the outbuilding made use of the Permitted Development Rights so that Full Planning Permission did not need to be sought. The robust construction we have specified is intended to be practical as well as visually striking. Thick sound insulation envelopes the internal room where the music is recorded, creating an isolated space that provides privacy and seclusion during the song writing process.