The facade of the Bacon Street residence is clad in glass of varying opacity and galvanized steel.

This private residence, situated just off bustling Brick Lane in the heart of London, is a radical structure constructed of in–situ reinforced concrete with a glass and steel clad frame. The residence is in Bethnal Green, East London, where the built environment is a mixture of run down Victorian brick shops and railway arches, large steel clad warehouses and empty sites fenced off with corrugated iron sheet. Previously used as a car park, the site is bound by brick buildings, Bacon Street and a school playground. The project was therefore an infill proposal that would complete the built fabric fronting Bacon Street and present a new facade to the playground.

Double-height living space that on warm days opens to a roof deck.

The residence contains a variety of spaces designed to allow different types of occupation over time. The ground floor and basement are currently being used as a separate one–bedroom apartment, but could easily be a self–contained workspace or reconnected to the main house to provide further sleeping accommodation. The first floor has two bedrooms and a bathroom, the second is the living room/kitchen and the third has a small study and access to the roof terrace. A concrete stairwell connects all the floors.

The concrete shell of the house was cast on-site.

There are two double-height spaces in the house, one spanning between the basement and the first floor and the other between the second floor and the roof (one in the ground, and one in the sky). There are also two external spaces: one in a lightwell on the first floor, created to make allowance for windows in the neighbouring building, and one on the third floor to catch as much sunlight as possible.

The concrete frame is clad in three different materials: glass, galvanised steel and black Alwitra Evalon. Alwitra is a roofing membrane that, together with insulation, wraps over the roof and down the rear wall. This heavily insulated buildup permits the extensive use of glazing on the Bacon Street facade. The structural glazing is a mix of clear and white laminate double-glazed units, allowing varying degrees of translucency. It has a different logic and rhythm to the pattern of the structural skeleton, creating the super–imposition of one pattern over the other. In the double-height space on the second floor, a double-glazed panel slides open across the facade and transforms the living room on warm days. The final cladding material, on the ground and first floors, is galvanized steel. The press formed panels have integral insulation and were developed specifically for this project with Cryotherm, who had never previously fabricated a cladding system.