Called the Weather Room, the new addition unites two wings of the 17th century house, and opens onto gardens.
The Weather Room features bars that are coated with steel, which forms a frame supporting the structural varnished bars. Steel allows 45mm sight lines onto the garden, capable of bearing people and scaffolding on the roof, to allow maintenance of the windows and roofs above. The varnished bars were hand-made by welding a group of steel flats together.
Adhesive LED tape, a lighting system, is attached within the structural steel frame. This, low-energy lighting system solved the conundrum of providing atmospheric light in a space with a glazed ceiling, without obtrusive luminaries. The resultant effect is of warm ribbons of light glowing from the sharp edges of the steel. During the day, it animates the space through the play of light and shadow from the glass and steel flats. As night falls, hidden blades of light within the steel develop an entirely different character.
Liddicoat & Goldhill, an architectural firm, founded in 2007 by two designers David Liddicoat and Sophie Goldhill, is based in London.
