Modernist Apartment Renovations in London by Coppin Dockray Architects

Highpoint II Duplex Apartment. Photography by Simon Bishop, Morley von Sternberg & Dusan Todorovic.

London-based Coppin Dockray is an architecture and design studio creating designs that are bold in idea, elegant in form and unexpected in approach. Their multiple renovations of apartments set within the Modernist masterpiece, Highpoint II in Highgate, are a renovation dreamboat well wordy of attention. Let’s dive in.

Highpoint II Duplex Apartment was a full refurbishment and interior renovation completed in 2012. Berthold Lubetkin’s seminal building of 1938 is Grade 1 Listed, and the building fabric is strictly protected. The duplex was in poor condition, having not changed hands in over 50 years and was in need of significant repair and restoration.

“We established a dialogue with English Heritage and began the delicate negotiations necessary to agree the work,” explain the architects. “A fire had recently swept through a neighbouring apartment. As builders cleared out the fire-damaged materials, we searched through the debris salvaging door handles, taps, window ironmongery, bathroom tiles and kitchen cabinet handles. By piecing together information, materials and historic components, we set about stitching these into the new design.”

The clients wanted a practical family home and they took a long-term approach as well as a ‘do what is takes’ attitude to restoring the original and only surviving 1938 bathrooms and dramatic concertina windows. The non-original servants’ kitchen was replaced with a new and efficient design in order to fit modern day appliances into the existing building fabric. A new study was formed and the finishes and fittings throughout were renewed. The striking colour palette of blues and browns was developed based on Le Corbusier’s 1931 colour collection, his Polychromie Architecturale.

Highpoint II Apartment. Photography by Brotherton Lock.

Highpoint II Apartment was Coppin Dockray’s fourth Highpoint interior renovation completed in 2015, which places a mural at the centre of the design – the result of a collaboration with street artist James Straffon.

A structural ‘zone’ runs down the centre of the building and was cleverly concealed by the original architect in a zone of storage cupboards, wardrobes and doorways. This structural arrangement allowed for large horizontal strip windows and generous open plan rooms. “In this project we sought to subtly expose this ‘structural seam’ in the building with a highly polished brass lining,” share Coppin Dockray architects.

Elsewhere a ‘quiet’ refurbishment was carried out, with new bathrooms, kitchen, study and living accommodation interiors. A collaboration with artist James Straffon culminated in a two storey high mural wrapping up through the space of the apartment, graphically representing a selection of treasured objects belonging to the clients.