How to build on an infill site: inside a Peckham house grafted on to an end-of-terrace garden

Fitting in with the neighbours was key to helping this local developer get the Corner House through planning.
Rory Gardiner
Jessica Mairs12 March 2021

“We don’t like projects where we think they’re deliberately sticking out, that they’re noisy bits of architecture shouting forattention and desperate to be their own little icon.”

This is how William Burges, director of 31/44 Architects, explains the unobtrusively modern design of Corner House, a three-bedroom new build grafted on to the end of a Victorian terrace in Peckham.

“It’s got the character and the proportion of all of its neighbours, but I think when you actually notice it then you realise that it’s contemporary and there are details which adopt what you might see in the terrace but then slightly subvert them. We like the idea that you’d pass it by,” he says.

You’d be foolish to do so, however, without pausing to notice the stylish yet subtle details that mark the house out from its neighbours.

Box fresh: A contemporary take on the Victorian conservatory

The project, by local developer Sara Mungeam (@houseobsessed), was built on the oddly shaped front garden of the original end-of-terrace building, or “donor” house, to which the new build is attached.

The original house was entered via the scrappy front garden, which faced on to the adjoining street. Mungeam bought the end-of-terrace and converted the original period building into two new flats, moving the entrance 90 degrees round the corner to align with its neighbours. A cast-concrete stoop gives separate access to the top and bottom flats.

After a lengthy planning negotiation with Southwark council, she then secured permission to build the three-bedroom house on the former front garden, on the understanding that it would improve the appearance of the street while also blending in — a clever feat of stealth modern architecture.

The Corner House’s pale grey brickwork mimics the tones of the ageing London stock of the street, while blind windows and a conservatory-like structure to the rear nod at the features you might expect to find on a Victorian terrace.

Sara Mungeam in the three-bedroom new-build on the end of a Victorian terrace in Peckham
Ben Anders

In a trick of the eye that unifies the two properties, an arched cut-out frames both the door to the top flat and a window on the new build. A concrete canopy following the angle of the stoop conceals the real entrance to Corner House at lower-ground level.

“It’s a modern interpretation of all the entrances on the street,” says Mungeam. “That’s part of that strategy of taking familiar things that people are comfortable with andthen beginning to retell the story,” adds Burges.

The rounded corner of the new build mirrors the form of a converted pub opposite and was a happy accident, says Burges, that creates the illusion of a pair of gatehouses to the street. Blind windows in the gable mimic the decorative relief work sometimes found on Victorian homes and enliven a facade where too much glazing would have made the interiors feel overlooked.

“We didn’t want to do a really blank gable because that feels a bit mean and a bit blunt,” he says. “[But] practically, if we put that many windows in house, then where do you put furniture? It’s not actually a very nice way to live.”

Attention to detail: the interiors of Corner House were fitted simply but with a focus on light

At the more private rear of the property there is an abundance of glazing that gives the appearance of a conservatory add-on. Its boxy form steps the scale of the property down as it approaches the garden of a neighbouring property. “It could almost look like an old house that we’ve put a rear extension on, but it isn’t,” says Burges.

The interiors were fitted simply but with strong attention to details such as lighting, storage and material finishes. But its new-build status proved a hard sell for buyers with their minds already made up about modern development.

“Your market is actually a bit more limited because lots of people are looking for a Victorian house, and they want all of those Victorian architectural features,” says Mungeam. “[Buyers] might be thinking that a modern house is like featureless Barratt Homes, not something that has a lot of detailing.”

Mungeam’s interior style has been heavily influenced by perennially popular Scandi design, neutral without looking bland. She styled the space with loose furniture from her own home which, once removed, left plenty of room for the new owners to make their own mark.

She expected the house to appeal to a hip, young, professional couple but in the end a retired architect and his family fell in love with it, drawn, no doubt, by the smart yet subtle design.

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