Chelsea Penthouse

A new top floor for a Chelsea townhouse, designed to give the house what the floors below could not: light, height and a view.

With a roof extension, the opportunity was to build the brightest rooms in the house. We took the ceilings to nearly three metres and placed skylights over the deepest parts of the plan, so the open kitchen and living space are full of daylight, and opened the room onto a recessed west-facing terrace for the evening sun.

Because the floor is new, we were careful that it should never feel like a modern box sitting on an old house. Oak joinery, a restrained palette and simple detailing tie it back to the building, and a desk set into the window gives a quiet place to work with the best outlook in the home.