Simon Gill Architects "juxtaposes a west London house for the living beside a home for the dead" 🤍

[Celerity]

https://www.dezeen.com/2022/04/15/simon-gill-architects-the-lodge-cemetery-house/











London studio Simon Gill Architects has extended and renovated a Victorian lodge in Fulham cemetery to create a house with a subterranean pool, courtyard gardens and lightwells. Aptly named The Lodge, the luxury residence was created for an army veteran who had once lived opposite the cemetery and wanted to use the existing building to create an atypical home.











The lodge, known officially as the Fulham Cemetery Lodge, was built in 1865 alongside a chapel, gatehouse and public toilets and had fallen into disrepair. When the opportunity to refurbish the structure presented itself, the owner "leapt at the chance to purchase it and turn it into an unusual home", Simon Gill Architects explained.











"The original urban composition has been repaired and enhanced, developing an architectural language that allows old and new to give meaning to each other," reflected the studio. "The retained lodge, now dramatically refurbished and extended, juxtaposes a house for the living beside a home for the dead."











A key driver behind Simon Gill Architects' design was to ensure the new elements of The Lodge were subordinate to the building's original Victorian architecture. The extension is largely positioned underground, reading as a single-storey structure from the outside, and features stone cladding that ties in with the original materiality.

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