Canonbury Grove
OMMX have remodelled a listed Georgian town house in Islington. The clients wanted a new garden room and described their love of reading whilst listening to the sound of rain. One of the clients is red-green colour blind, seeing both colours as grey.
The garden and extension are expressed as a single entity: a new terrazzo ground, partly submerged and partly covered. An exposed seam of cut terrazzo marks the ground level and modulates to form an interior shelf, three planters, a waterfall and a pool. The garden vista culminates in a large urn that has been retrofitted into a fountain.
Water reveals the secrets of the garden. As it washes over the grey terrazzo, it exposes the coloured aggregate, transforming its colour, texture and figuring. The whole ground reverberates with the sound of falling water, as it spills out of the urn and travels towards to the house. When it rains, water cascades down the steps, mutating the entire landscape into a terrazzo waterfall, before arriving at a narrow slot that marks the threshold between inside and out.
The new garden room was conceived of as a window onto the garden, the sky, and an illusory neighbouring room. A mirrored wall reflects a 3m oculus to the sky and daylight into the depth of the floor plan. We designed a bespoke cantilevered light to preserve the integrity of the oculus and illusion. The arms rotate to inscribe semi circles, echoing the form of the oculus above. Three tiers sail above head height, whilst a fourth is lower and used as a reading light.
