House London is an insider’s guide to the city’s best architectural transformations

House London is a new book offering a peek into some of the best redesigns of the capital’s omnipresent, historical brick home typology

Elsley Road by Al-Jawad Pike
Elsley Road by Al-Jawad Pike
(Image credit: Anna Stathaki)

London’s rich and diverse housing stock is enduring and resilient. From Georgian through to Victorian, Edwardian, and 20th century, the capital and its suburbs are home to an array of familiar typologies that have survived bombs and bulldozers, as well as endless shifts in the way we use our homes. Now, a new book, House London, takes the reader on a journey across all this potential, celebrating the humble, omnipresent, and ever-evolving historical brick home typology. 

House London, by Ellie Stathaki and Anna Stathaki

(Image credit: Anna Stathaki)

This evolution is where architects come in. Town houses and apartments exist within an endless, roaming cycle of regeneration and refurbishment as economics and demographics change, offering designers and their clients a chance of infinite variety and experimentation within some relatively tight parameters.

Ellie Stathaki (opens in new tab), Wallpaper’s very own architecture editor, has plenty of experience seeking out the capital’s best new architecture. In this new monograph, she’s joined by her sister Anna, an accomplished architectural photographer.

Hampstead House by Dominic McKenzie Architects and Suzy Hoodless

Hampstead House by Dominic McKenzie Architects and Suzy Hoodless

(Image credit: Anna Stathaki)

Together, they’ve assembled 50 of the best recent examples of radical home refurbishment, from grand detached houses to industrial apartments and traditional terraces, creating an intriguing snapshot of evolving tastes and innovations shaped by some of the brightest names on the London architecture and interior design scene. 

OHST by 6a Architects

OHSt by 6a Architects

(Image credit: Anna Stathaki)

What stands out is the sheer diversity of design approaches on display. Barely two decades ago, the typical London refurbishment had almost become a cliché, a boxy assemblage of white walls, big windows and cookie-cutter minimalism that paid little heed to the original structures. 

Ellesmere Road by DROO Architecture, featured in House London book by Ellie Stathaki and Anna Stathaki

Ellesmere Road by DROO Architecture

(Image credit: Anna Stathaki)

Those days have long gone, and the projects in this book are all refreshingly different. There’s still refined modernist rigour, of course, but also experimentation with colour, material, and form, as well as renewed respect for original features.

Refurbishments are still the best way for young firms to cut their architectural teeth, but the book also goes big, with expansive renovations that span the spectrum from postmodernist opulence to set-like intrigue and explosions of polychromatic experimentation. 

Up-Side-Down House by Collective Works

Up-Side-Down House by Collective Works

(Image credit: Anna Stathaki)

This is a book about interiors as much as it is about architecture, weaving in owners’ stories and lifestyles alongside the creative process.

The lush photography eschews sterile staging in favour of a more intimate, eclectic mix, and the text is an informative and insightful celebration of design’s rightful place at the heart of the domestic realm.

INFORMATION

House London, Ellie Stathaki, Photography by Anna Stathaki, Frances Lincoln, £35Frances Lincoln is an imprint of The Quarto Group, QuartoKnows.com (opens in new tab)

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture Editor at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018) and Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020).