Bere Admin February 14th, 2007

In the Evening standard on 14th February 2007, Nicole Swengley wrote

‘Amid the Victorian terrace homes in one Islington street sits a modern gouse, glamorously clad in Zinc. The owner of this unusual property, which, surprisingly, does not look out of place, is graphic designer Edward Gibbs, who moved there with his wife, Felicity Canning, an NHS manager, and their children, Sarah, 28, Jack, 16 and Hugh, 12, from a four-bedroom house in Stoke Newington.

But it is only due to Gibbs’s vision and persistence that the house is there at all. “When the Islington house came on the market in May 2004, I immediately saw the potential for building a completely new house in its triangular-shaped garden,” he says.

Gibbs’s offer of ₤500,000 was accepted for the house and he called the Royal Institute of British Architects for a lost of architects. “Buying only made sense if we could get planning permission and an architect on board,” he says.

Architect Justin Bere responded enthusiastically and “straight away there was a rapport between us”. Gibbs recalls.

What followed was a leap of faith. Gibbs remortgaged the Stoke Newington house, borrowing ₤75,000 to refurbish the new one, and took out a new mortgage and unsecured loans to finance the new-build.

He then bought the house for ₤5550,000 in July 2005. “It was quite a gamble,” he says. “I budgeted for ₤250,000 for the new-build but it finally cost ₤600,000 because we went for quality.”

Fortunately, Bere’s company enjoys a good reputation with Islington’s planners, who were impressed with his sympathetic, imaginative interpretation of a modern terrace house. And luckily, Bere knew one of the neighbours , who contacted the seven properties that backed on to the new-build. Everyone had a chance to discuss their concerns. They were relieved to hear that the building’s vertical zinc sides would reflect light rather than block it, and that the rear’s stepped profile followed the line of the neighbouring extensions.

The original plan to use recycled concrete proved too expensive so Bere suggested cladding seven-inch-thick timber panels with up to 50cm of foam-glass insulation, then wrapping them in zinc.

Why zinc? “it’s long-lasting, adaptable and watertight,” explains Bere. “It’s also very thin so the insulation can be very thick. We would have lost 10cm of insulation of we’d built in brick.” The timber panels, which came from Austria, were quickly installed. “The house went up in five days,” Gibbs exclaims. Internal walls were plastered and painted white to avoid a log-cabin feel while a translucent stain was used on oak floors and ceilings. Floor-to-ceiling, sliding glass windows are used structurally as the rear ground-floor wall. These open onto a deck, with a built-in Australian BeefEater barbecue and a pebbled garden with a gas-fired hot tub, delivered in kit form from Alaska.

The main challenge was squeezing everything into a smallish, wedge shaped site. “Had the structure been one meter further forward we wouldn’t have fitted in the staircase, front door, insulated wall and side passage,” says Bere. The site also dictated internal space, with bathrooms and the staircase at the narrower, front end and bedrooms and living space at the back.

Gibbs designed the open-plan kitchen using cantilevered Corian plinth, with inset hob, as a breakfast bar. Space-efficient storage units around the stainless-steel worktops and sink were custom-made and house an LCD television. He made the amoeba-shaped, white MDF dining table (“It works brilliantly because people sit at different angles”) and the rosewood storage unit flanking the sitting area in which an iconic red Egg chair adds a splash of colour. “There’s not much space so I wanted something eye-catching,” says Gibbs.

“The living space is compact but we have found that the house brings us together. There’s more family interaction, instead of everyone going off to separate rooms.”

Below the stairs there is a sizeable shower room and cupboard where the family’s racing bikes are stored. Upstairs, a short corridor leads to the children’s two bedrooms (one with a bunk-bed), furnished with white desks and white, wall-hung, kitchen cabinets from Ikea.

A full-height oak door shuts off the bathroom and stairs, leading to a mezzanine study and main bedroom, turning it into a private suite. Here, a custom-made, oak storage unit is used structurally as the master bedrooms internal wall. It has a sliding door leading to a walk-in wardrobe behind the bed, while smaller sliding doors conceal bedside reading lights.

Gibbs embraced most of Bere’s environmentally friendly ideas, although costs were minimized by installing double-glazing rather than triple-glazing. A heat-recovery ventilation system is ducted below the floor alongside under-floor heating. It warms incoming fresh air, using heat retained from out-going air. “Its healthy for the environment and for people,” says Bere. “It runs on a low-energy motor, saves on heating bills and reduces the dust-mite count.”

An exterior solar thermal panel heats the water while whole-house water filtration cuts chlorine and benzenes from bathing and drinking water.

The family moved in last autumn, none months after building started. Now they could not imagine living anywhere else.

“The house feels friendly and welcoming,” says Gibbs. “It’s modern without being austere because the shape and materials five it character.”’

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