Hidden Oasis
Capped by a dramatic copper roof, Gianni Botsford’s multi-level house on the site of a former London garden offers sanctuary and serenity in the bustling city
“I like projects that are difficult or contradictory or that have big constraints,” architect Gianni Botsford says when I meet him outside his so-called House in a Garden, recently completed in London’s Notting Hill. The residence in question arguably fulfills all of those criteria: It’s a pavilion with a sinuous copper-clad roof and two-level basement built in a small, north-facing plot right behind the five-storey 1840s villa where the architect has had an apartment for the past 25 years.
Botsford could be described as an expert in tight backland sites, having also completed 2005’s Light House, an 800-square-metre home in the envelope of a former cosmetics factory turned antiques warehouse. In that instance, he chose to design...
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