• Client: Private
• Architect: Szczepaniak Astridge
• Photography: Edmund Sumner
• Completion: 2020
• Value: Confidential
• Expertise: Structures

In collaboration with Szczepaniak Astridge we added a rooftop extension to Leaf House, a terrace in south London for architectural photographer Edmund Sumner and writer Yuki Sumner.

Leaf House is a minimalist and modern family home taking inspiration from Japanese interior design, as well as sustainability, two important components for the choice of materials used in the loft, which has clay covering its roof and walls.

The refurbishment comprises a new loft extension including a new master bedroom, which is dominated by its glazed rear wall, and provides a view of the verdant landscape and the city beyond. The space is completely open with the stairs arriving directly in the bedroom and no walls dividing the bath from the sleeping space. In pride of place is a traditional wooden Japanese tub, with exposed copper piping and taps.

The loft conversion formed part of an overhaul of the terrace's upper storeys to create additional bedrooms and a new office space.

The structural intervention was entirely timber forming another edition in a long line of projects where Webb Yates Engineers successfully design low embodied carbon, “steel free” residential conversion projects. In this case stressed skin approach was used.

Our input to the refurbishment not only enhanced the structural simplicity, but ensured the house was as low-energy as possible.