61 – 63 Portobello Road, London W11
Description of The Project
This scheme for a small but prominent site at the top (south) end of Portobello Road is one of the first modern residential new build projects in Notting Hill for some considerable time. Undertaken on behalf of a developer, the two houses demonstrate what can be achieved for the speculative market in terms of contemporary design. The new buildings replace an existing two-storey commercial building erected in the 1950’s.
The key parameters in developing the design were the site’s position along the very public thoroughfare that is Portobello Road, and the fact that the buildings occupy the whole of the site, except for small rear patios. Whilst not being located within the market area of Portobello Road, the site is on the main route to the market from the transport facilities of Notting Hill Gate. At weekends, therefore, and often during the week, it is exposed to the very public gaze of those seeking the market.
The brief was for two single dwellings on three levels, with no on-site parking. Each house is approximately 200 sq m. The main living room for each house is located on the top floor, for the light, and for the views up and down Portobello Road; an intermediate raised ground floor at entrance level provides the kitchen, family area and a bedroom/study; the main bedrooms are on the lower floor, where the greater available build depth is used to good effect to provide bedrooms, bathrooms, dressing rooms, and utility rooms. At the rear, over the two lower floors, the external line of glazing is canted, to avoid a sense of looking straight onto the existing rear boundary wall. A landscaped patio provides an external planted space off the main bedroom. There is an open staircase rising through all levels, enhancing the sense of openness, light and vertical connection.
The entrance to the houses is centralised, and recessed back from the pavement line, away from the nursery school on the south side, and a vehicular entrance on the north side. Consequently, the new front wall acts as a screen to the entrance area, creating an intermediate semi-private space, avoiding the sense of the front doors opening directly onto Portobello Road.
This layering, recession and screening continues in rotating vertical screens in the front wall. Turned 90 degrees to the street, they provide a degree of visual privacy to the occupants from people approaching along the pavement: views in are only possible when one is parallel with each opening. The repetitive vertical emphasis of the screens is a counterpoise to the more horizontal feel of the main front wall.
The structure of the roof is an elegant balanced cantilever off a central steel frame, with no perimeter supports at roof level. This allows for all round glazing at high level where the roof is flipped up, so that the roof floats above the main living space.
The main front glass wall at first floor comprises a a single piece of structural glazing, with a rotating door that provides access to the front plant balcony. In front of this glass wall, along the top of the forward front wall, the balustrading is of fritted glass suspended off a stainless-steel frame set behind the glass.
Whilst being modern buildings, these houses engage with their immediate context in terms of their overall scale, the layering of the frontage both vertically and horizontally, and the way in which they relate to Portobello Road. The design seeks to establish that a public location for residential use can beneficially include recession and privacy, whilst at the same time opening onto and enjoying the very lively public realm offered by the site.
