Nestle Studio

With an expanding family our client asked us to create a painting studio within their garden that enhanced the existing landscape and retained a mature Silver Birch tree. Our clients requested a large amount of daylight to paint by but with a Southerly aspect also needed to avoid overheating within the studio. We nestled the studio into the corner of their suburban garden, retaining as much existing planting as possible and wrapping the building around the Silver Birch tree that acts as an important summer sunshade for the studio and creates dappled light within the building throughout the day.

Clad in untreated Western Red Cedar vertical cladding, which will grey over time, the studio will gradually blend into the surrounding planting. The top of edge of the cladding at studio roof level was designed as a feathered edge to avoid a hard line allowing the building, once greyed, to fade into the planting and sky. Inside the material choice of birch faced plywood and a concrete floor offers natural warmth with the robustness needed for an art studio.

The windows split the views out of and into the studio allowing vistas across the garden and back to the house whilst the glazed door to the rear allows the summer setting sun to penetrate though the studio causing the inside to glow as sunset approaches. The studio is located near Hampstead Heath, London.