Catja de Haas
Architects

Exposed struc­ture and plas­ter mark Cat­ja de Haas’s base­ment office conversion

The base­ment of this Lon­don ter­raced house has been re-mod­elled to cre­ate a light, airy office for the architect’s prac­tice, com­plete with its own direct entrance. The inter­nal stairs down to the Work­space Con­ver­sion have been removed and one of the spine walls has been opened-up leav­ing the struc­ture exposed. Full sto­ry can be seen here.

When it came to choos­ing the per­fect spot for a new fam­i­ly home, the coastal low­lands around Chich­ester Har­bour pulled on Cat­ja de Haas’s heart­strings. This hin­ter­land between land and sea remind­ed the Dutch archi­tect of her child­hood back in the Nether­lands, so West Sus­sex and its land­scape rep­re­sent­ed a curi­ous kind of homecoming.

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Two small bed­rooms on the top floor are sep­a­rat­ed with a cur­tain and have both a small loft room to retreat into. This reduces the height-per­cep­tion of the house and reduces the load on the foun­da­tion. A small dormer hous­es a new small room with views over the city and under the eaves a sec­ond bed­room is locat­ed. The void space is used to hang net­ting in. 

The rafters in the cathe­dral ceil­ing have been left exposed and have been painted.

Hid­den Home­less­ness Com­pe­ti­tion on the Colan­der Website.

Proud to be part of the win­ning team for this impor­tant com­pe­ti­tion. Our pro­pos­al: ​‘Good Night’, com­bined a hotel and hos­tel, as a social entre­pre­neur­ship project. Good­night was writ­ten in the para­pet of the pro­posed build­ing: wish­ing all in the build­ing as well as all in the city a good night. We wish each oth­er a good night, every night, a pledge, or reminder that sleep­ing safe­ly is impor­tant: some­thing we should all work towards achiev­ing for all. 

Office Ten
The Colan­der Web­site
AJ cov­er­age

Cat­ja de Haas Archi­tects Col­lab­o­rat­ed with Rosie Bichard; Anders Luhr and Eri­ka Suzu­ki from OfficeTen. Sophie Walk­er worked on the project for Cat­ja de Haas Architects.

Check out the Giant Dolls’ house website.

the stairs move, and form a dec­o­ra­tive object in the room. This was a study for steps in the Toolk­it. They were, how­ev­er, aban­doned in favour of a sim­ple ladder.