"This beautifully detailed and sensitive project really makes the most of this very tight site with ingenuity and originality." 

Camden Design Award judges

Wolsey Mews Studios is a self-build project comprising two new family homes and a light-filled office space for BHA. Located in a conservation area of Kentish Town, it is an exemplar of what can be achieved on a constrained urban infill site.

Developed by Catherine Burd & Buddy Haward, on a site that most developers discounted as being simply too difficult to develop, the building responds precisely to its context and transforms the quality of the streetscape. Sitting between a post-war housing block and an 18thC former warehouse, its form and detail take cues from both, with carefully chosen pink/yellow external brickwork and a gabled roof profile that echoes the scale and rhythm of the warehouse.

Behind the bold, subtly modulated street façade, a sophisticated interlocking plan makes the most of the tight site and contains unexpectedly generous light-filled internal spaces. A basement fills the entire site footprint providing both houses with generous courtyards filling both houses with an abundance of natural light. Fresh air is supplied by opening windows, northlights and MVHR The material palette is understated and economic with robust, sustainable, self-finished materials throughout.

The design envisaged numerous living and working scenarios, and the real delight is the simplicity and adaptability of the building to accommodate different needs and uses. The large first floor currently houses BHA's studio and a generous living space.  

Client:   Catherine Burd / Buddy Haward

Stages: RIBA 0 – 6