Developer Duncan Blackmore has turned a 25-square-metre condominium in Glasgow right into a brightly colored and versatile residing house that does not comprise any freestanding furnishings.
Blackmore labored carefully with architect Lee Ivett and designer Simon Harlow to plan the inside of the ground-floor tenement flat, which he makes use of as a base whereas visiting his different initiatives within the metropolis’s Govanhill space.
When Blackmore bought the property it comprised a cramped hallway, a compact bathe room, a kitchen and a sleeping space, which had been separated by partition partitions.
The primary concept for the redesigned house was to allow circulation all through and to utilise its verticality along with the square-shaped ground space.
“I needed to have the ability to stroll round within the flat, despite the fact that it is tiny,” mentioned Blackmore. “I additionally needed nearly all of the house to be versatile by way of use, relatively than defining areas for sure actions.”
Work started with the removing of inner partitions and the elevating of present structural openings nearer to the three.4-metre ceilings. A collection of volumes designed in three dimensions had been then inserted to fulfil varied purposeful wants.
The condominium’s entrance space leads into an open house containing a hard and fast bench for sitting, lounging or sleeping. A shelf that capabilities as a desk is inserted subsequent to one among two giant, south-facing home windows that flood the inside with pure gentle.
Key capabilities, together with washing, sleeping, cooking and the doorway, are pushed to the perimeters of the plan, liberating up the remainder of the house so it may be utilized in quite a lot of other ways.
“I used to be eager to keep away from having a typical residing house with a settee, a espresso desk and a tv,” Blackmore advised Dezeen.
“The primary house is completely unprogrammed and uncluttered and has nearly nothing in it. You should use it for a gathering or a celebration or simply as someplace to sit down and assume. I like how versatile and unfussy it’s.”
A mezzanine sleeping platform is slotted in above a compact bathe room, benefiting from the vertical house and stopping the room from feeling disproportionately excessive.
The mattress is reached through a set of wood steps, with a small round gap seen from the residing space offering someplace to position a hand whereas manoeuvring into place.
The brand new interventions are constructed across the retained construction and have kinds that playfully disguise which partitions, columns or beams retain their authentic performance.
“Lee got here up with the shapes primarily based on the connection between present openings and the geometry we imposed on the house,” Blackmore identified.
“The place we wanted to bridge variations in peak or gaps between sure components, the surfaces meet one another with a curve or a step,” he added, “so the ornament is derived from the decision of those structural glitches.”
The undertaking takes its title, Ferguson, from the discovered nameplate of a earlier occupier and the design borrows from the architectural heritage of its environment.
The remnants of a close-by constructing that burned down knowledgeable the arched form above the steps as much as the sleeping space, in addition to a gap that enables daylight to filter via to the bathe room.
Colored cushions on the bench reference the doorway of a close-by constructing, whereas the bright-yellow datum that extends across the house is a reversal of the painted partitions within the tenement’s shared stairwell.
The kitchen incorporates the minimal facilities wanted to acquire a constructing warrant. Its outsized purple cast-concrete sink is accessible for hand washing on arrival from the doorway corridor – a legacy of the Covid-19 pandemic throughout which the undertaking was constructed.
Behind the condominium’s solely inner door, the bathe room is absolutely lined in two colourways of an ornamental stable floor materials made by Simon Harlow’s firm Mirrl. A custom-made sink extends the usage of vivid yellow seen elsewhere within the inside.
Your entire undertaking was fabricated by Harlow and artist’s technician Simon Richardson, leading to a stage of workmanship and intuitive artistic detailing that lends it a powerful sense of character.
Blackmore is eager to stress that the condominium shouldn’t be considered for instance of tiny residing, as he solely ever spends transient spells of time there.
“I am completely not suggesting that folks ought to stay like this,” he mentioned. “The house is basically private and tailor-made to my wants, that are a pleasant mattress, a scorching bathe with good water stress and first rate WiFi.”
“In the event you had been residing there completely you’d design it very otherwise, however as a spot for me to remain and work or loosen up it is excellent.”
Blackmore is the co-founder of developer Arrant Land, which creates initiatives led by an curiosity in structure, constructed heritage and the social dynamics of the UK’s cities and cities.
Earlier initiatives backed by Arrant Land embrace a red-brick home with playful tiled detailing in south London and an condominium constructing within the seaside city of Whitstable that includes black brick partitions that evoke the close by wood fishing huts.
The photographs are courtesy of Duncan Blackmore.
