Loggia House
Loggia House is a minimalist residence located in London, United Kingdom, designed by House Of EM. The transformation of a former children’s nursery into a family home reveals how deliberate material choices and spatial reconfiguration can bridge cultural heritage with contemporary London living. House Of EM’s approach centers on a sunken loggia – a concrete-lined threshold space that reframes the relationship between domestic interior and garden. Lowered 500 millimeters below the main floor level, this architectural gesture creates what the practice describes as an indoor room within the garden, a zone of transition that draws from Brazilian architectural traditions while responding to the spatial constraints of a Victorian terrace.
The loggia’s concrete construction uses pre-cast panels with controlled color and texture, forming both the structural and visual foundation of the rear extension. This choice of material speaks directly to Brazilian brutalism’s legacy of exposed, monolithic forms, yet here the concrete serves a more intimate function – defining a space for everyday family life rather than institutional scale. The lowered floor plane naturally draws occupants toward the garden edge, while fully opening glazing dissolves the boundary between inside and outside. Built-in seating reinforces this pull, creating a social architecture that shapes how the family moves through and occupies the house.
Stained oak veneer provides the material counterpoint to concrete throughout the interior. The timber appears across bespoke joinery, ceiling joists, and integrated cabinetry, introducing warmth and visual continuity from the kitchen through to the sunken extension. This pairing of raw concrete and refined timber recalls the textural contrasts found in mid-century Brazilian residential work, where hard mineral surfaces meet organic wood grain to create spaces that feel both solid and alive. The ceiling joists in the extension, clad in oak veneer and punctuated with rooflights, bring natural light deep into the plan while maintaining the material rhythm established throughout.
House Of EM preserved the front rooms to retain the house’s Victorian character, concentrating intervention on the rear where a series of impractical U-PVC extensions had fragmented the floor plan. The new open-plan kitchen and dining area connects directly to the loggia, with a breakfast bar and integrated appliances maximizing storage while creating varied seating configurations within a single flowing space. Upstairs, combining a bedroom and bathroom produced one generous family bathroom, while raising the rear bedroom ceiling to the eaves improved proportion and volume without extending the building’s footprint.
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