Townhouse, Edinburgh
Living Spaces
This A-Listed property, located in Edinburgh’s New Town Conservation Area, occupies the ground, lower ground, and basement of a tenement building. A wholescale repair and refurbishment of the property was undertaken to provide a contemporary multi-generational home.
The central architectural concept was to preserve the original use and functions of the rooms and their associated levels of grandiosity, which descends through the property from formal rooms on the entrance floor to more functional in the basement,.
On the ground floor, room forms and functions were retained with only minor interventions. Cornicing, plasterwork, timber paneling and fireplaces were all repaired and conserved including the Victorian anaglypta high level wall coverings to the apse-ended music room.
The lower ground floor continues to provide kitchen functions to the home. This is the main area of intervention in the property where the plan has been opened-up, side-to-side, to subtly create a new 21st century heart to the home and to maximise the connection with the full garden plot. The original stone platform and steps to the garden were widened to enhance the connection with nature but also to create a generous place to sit, and a potting shed below.
The original circular stair, re-plastered in lime render, takes the residents to the basement level where (as before) laundry, cellars and boiler room functions are housed. A home cinema, bar and potting shed/boot room have also been created.
Fitted furniture throughout the property has been carefully designed with a consistency that ties the three levels together and is of a quality that does justice to the original joinery, whilst providing a contemporary contrast to it.