House proud - architectural firm McLean Quinlan's interior design for an Edwardian house in Ealing, London, England

Architectural Review, The, Oct, 1998 by Penny McGuire

Conversion of an Edwardian house into a Modernist inspired dwelling reinvents family tradition and asserts delight in luminance, materials and detailing.

The London borough of Ealing, famous in the inter- and postwar years for the Ealing Film Studios, was earlier still considered the 'queen of the suburbs'.(1) In spite of some indifferent commercial development, it is still remarkable for open commons and leafy streets lined by large Victorian and Edwardian family houses.

The domestic character of the area is defended by local residents as well as planning controls; and in converting an Edwardian house into a modern dwelling for a family of five, McLean Quinlan had to retain the double-fronted brick shell. The house faced east onto the street, was deep in plan and detached from, but close to, buildings on either side. In spite of this, Fiona McLean has created a new building, Within the shell the interior was almost entirely scooped out, except for first floor joists and a fragment of staircase, and a back extension was removed.

McLean's design reflects the conventions of family life that were implicit in the original, in which the formal is marked out from informal, the private from the general. In recreating this ordering her reference was the European villa, expressing hedonistic pleasure in calm fluid spaces, in the play of light on pure white planes and the occasional block of strong colour, and on natural materials - for floors, sumptuous grey and creamy-gold limestones and pale woods; limestones and mosaic in bathrooms.

The extension has been replaced by a gabled structure which, though integrated with the main building by a hall, curving staircase and landings, feels detached. This is partly because the accommodation at each level - an attic study, first floor guest quarters, and ground floor family room - is meant to be perceived as apart; but also because on each of the upper floors passage between the two parts of the house is an event. At the very top, the passage becomes a bridge between a void on one hand, the stairwell on the other; and this service core is also a lightwell with light being brought in through skylights and a translucent glass panel let into the side wall on the first floor.

You enter the house formally, through the original front door and new glazed lobby into the living room. This big clear space runs back to a small inner courtyard - in effect a lightwell covered with light reflective stones and glazed on three sides, (the remaining side being the party wall). The living room is divided from a similarly spare dining room by a short length of wall embracing a cupboard faced with 24 panels of Oriental delicacy, designed by McLean to hold hi-fi paraphernalia.

Otherwise entrance can be more informal, through a luminous aisle on the south side, like a lean-to, roofed with translucent polycarbonate and furnished with a line of Venetian red cupboards. This delivers you into the family centre, to the foot of the stairs where an elegant little lavatory has been fitted into the curve of the wall, to the kitchen and glazed garden room. Big limestone flags laid diagonally continue through sliding glass doors across the terrace so that when the doors are open the inside really is a part of the outside.

Ascending the stairs you find the children's rooms disposed around a landing and bathroom; but the most private, and desirable, retreat for parents is in the attic, fitted under the eaves and cutting into the ridge line. The bedroom, lined in birch ply and lit by a large attic window, has an austere chapel-like simplicity; behind it, a generous dressing room is lined with shelves and hanging rails. The same simplicity governs design of the adjoining bathroom. Clad in stone this is another chapel-like space, this time under the steep pitch of the original gable and illuminated by a rooflight and slots cut into the gable ends.

Behind its traditional facade this house is an exotic presence in the suburb. As you move through it you are continually made aware of light and surface, entertained by inventive details - the patterns of light cast by the perforated rear wall of the guest room, the seeming fragility of glass basins set on stone, the tiny clear squares set into translucent glass, each one representing a family member's height.

Architect

McLean Quinlan

Project architect

Fiona McLean

Structural engineer

Frank Van Loock Associates

Limestone flooring & cladding

Stone Age

Doors

The London Door Company

Windows & glazing

Cantifix

Window blinds

Silent Gliss

Photographs

Peter Cook/VIEW

1 The Buildings of England: London 3 North West by Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, London Penguin.