Queens Square

A Grade II listed townhouse on a Bloomsbury square has been converted back to a four-bedroom family home by Inglis Badrashi Loddo Architects, undoing a 1970s annex that had bound it to the office building next door. The brief was to refurbish, extend and add a roof terrace, working within the constraints of a small footprint, multiple floors and a Georgian listed shell.

The 1970s rooftop addition has been replaced with a traditional mansard. Retaining the existing steel-framed escape stair enclosure unlocked planning consent for a new roof terrace and a structurally glazed garden room that would otherwise have been refused. To gain floor area at the lowest level, the basement was lowered and a new utility room tucked into the under-pavement vaults. Thermal performance was upgraded throughout, and four bedrooms with ensuites are arranged alongside a new living and dining space with bespoke joinery and a custom kitchen.

The argument made to the planners was that the right response to a Grade II listed Georgian house was neither pastiche nor stripped-back restoration, but a measured mix of preserved original fabric and sympathetic contemporary detailing. The staircase carries that argument. A dark Wenge form sits against a traditional black and white tiled floor, drawing the eye on entry. On the lower floors it occupies a long narrow slot so that kitchen and living room read as one space; through the bedroom floors it relaxes into a more conventional run; at the top it culminates in a glazed box that opens onto the terrace and the rooftops of Bloomsbury.

American walnut veneer carries through the entrance hall panelling and the kitchen joinery. Book-matched veneer is applied to the sliding pocket double door into the kitchen and wraps around the entrance door, where the semi-circular overlight is echoed by an arched threshold and by the curved ends of the kitchen island. The curved panels were made on site by gluing vertical-grained veneer to a cross-grained under-layer for rigidity without losing flexibility, then bonded to a plywood former with contact adhesive and finished in acid catalyst lacquer.

Architect: Kim Loddo, Inglis Badrashi Loddo. Structural engineer: Price & Myers. Photographer: David Grandorge.