NAN Residence in London by FOF Studio.

Helen Chong from FOF Studio has renovated a ground floor apartment in a former paper mill and tannery in Bermondsey, London. Home to a young couple, several original features of the warehouse such as timber beams, brick walls, cast-iron columns and cast-iron pivoting windows were retained as the team shifted gears, seeking to create a brighter interior.

Addressing the issue of light head-on, FOF removed one of the partitions that formerly divided the living room and bedroom. By opening up the rooms, daylight from the south-facing windows could penetrate into the living and dining zones, creating a much brighter area. In lieu of the wall, a set of full height timber-glazed screens were introduced to allow flexibility, and add visual interest, with the filtering of light through a mix of clear and vintage-pressed glass. The bi-fold screen serves a two-fold purpose — either to completely open up the living room or to be closed up into a bedroom. A curtain was added directly behind the screen for added privacy in the evening.

Introducing a clerestory window between the kitchen and bathroom further allowed daylight to flood deep into the interior rooms. After establishing the height of the kitchen unit, the remaining wall space was utilised to add the window, allowing for a simple and unobtrusive solution. Aside from resolving the spatial configurations, the choice of the material palette also played a key role in achieving a brighter space.

There were many existing elements to work with, of which the brick wall was a dominant one. The colours of the brick were used as a starting point for the material palette. Picking up on the brown and yellow hues of the brick, and adding warmth to the palette, oak-frame secondary glazing is introduced to all windows. Pragmatically, this also served to insulate the interior thermally and acoustically. The remaining palette was deliberately kept calm — with warm-white painted walls, matching joinery, white-washed oak timber floor, and neutral colour cast concrete in the kitchen.

The focal point of the open-plan living space is the kitchen. At the clients request floor area was added by reducing the size of the bathrooms, creating a generous and inviting kitchen equipped with a kitchen island, dishwasher, wine fridge and plenty of storage. The kitchen joineries were kept minimal, reflecting the palette of the rest of the apartment. Framing the view of the kitchen is the original water pipe left in place, suspended above the new island and upwards into the rest of the building.

Crisp and well-resolved, this apartment renovation by FOF Studio blissfully combines clean silhouette’s with original fixtures, harnessing materiality and layout to add a decidedly lighter feel to this warehouse refurbished apartment.

[Images courtesy of FOF Studio. Photography by Biel Moreno.]