Holland Park Penthouse

The clients had bought the western penthouse on the top two floors of Block 1 at Holland Park Gate, a new development in Kensington. The shell was already designed and approved; what they wanted was a family home. Calm, welcoming, generous, the kind of space their children would grow into.

Work began with the planning. The approved facade carried opaque or back-fritted panels in several places where the habitable rooms now sat (dining, living, bedrooms, the study). We drew up amendments to bring those panels back to clear glazing, opening the rooms to Kensington High Street, Edwardes Square and the rooftops of west London. Openable windows on the north facade were repositioned to ventilate the bedrooms. The corner glazing was kept to preserve the lightness of the set-back penthouse volume, and the approved material palette was matched panel-for-panel so the alterations read as part of the original.

Inside, the residential brief took over. A curved white ceiling sweeps through the principal living spaces. A bespoke timber stair with glass balustrade links the two floors, set behind a steel-and-Crittall screen. Bathrooms run marble and brass; the kitchen sits a dark stone island under sculptural pendants; the terraces wrap to the south and the west for evening sun and the long view across London. Interiors by Taylor Howes, landscape by Marcus Barnett.