On a Victorian terrace in London's Walthamstow, Pablo Sanchez Lopez restores spatial coherence to a house compromised by a 1970s redevelopment.
The house at 25 Brunswick Street had been altered in the 1970s, and the intervention had left it darker and less functional than the original Victorian structure. A central staircase divided the ground floor. The upper floor ran along a narrow corridor serving rooms with awkward proportions. A uPVC porch sat in visible contrast to the original bay windows; a glazed conservatory at the rear had weakened the connection to the garden. Pablo Sanchez Lopez, working as PSL, read the accumulated damage as "a clear opportunity to restore coherence to both interior and exterior."
The central move is the repositioning of the staircase. Moving it against the party wall frees the entire ground floor from its organizing constraint, rationalizes circulation on the upper floor, and opens a route toward future loft expansion without requiring another structural intervention. Placing the utilitarian elements, kitchen, staircase, and WC, at the center allows the living and dining spaces to occupy the ends of the house, where light enters from street and garden simultaneously.
At the front, the uPVC porch is replaced with a timber structure built from Red Grandis, a sustainably produced eucalyptus hardwood selected for its durability and the warmth of its reddish tones against the existing brickwork. Red Grandis carries through to the windows, external doors, and the exposed rafters of the side extension, creating material continuity between the porch and the rear addition.
The rear intervention is spatial rather than additive. PSL's side extension optimizes the internal plan rather than extending toward the garden boundary. A large pivot door and an adjacent window strengthen the visual and physical connection to the garden without sacrificing interior privacy. The balance between openness and enclosure is held by the geometry of the extension itself.
The ground floor, fully open-plan, risked being visible from the street at all hours. The solution is a set of full-height heavyweight curtains along the entrance zone, creating what PSL describes as a "soft hallway" between the front door and the living areas. The curtain allows spaces to merge or separate, filters light, and controls views without the rigidity of a partition wall.
Gaboon plywood lines the staircase, wall surfaces, and upper floor, providing a consistent warm grain against the Ceppo di Gré terrazzo flooring on the ground level. The terrazzo will look better in twenty years than it does today. Full internal insulation and infrastructure for a future air-source heat pump ensure the house can improve its environmental performance without another round of significant construction. Photographed by Lorenzo Zandri.
