TIM LUCAS
KEW HOUSE
Introduction Kew House is an experimental project that promotes housing innovation through design-led research exploring a kit-of-parts approach, structural façades, prefabrication and how digital fabrication opens up the possibilities for self-build. Constructed on a tightly constrained site in a conservation area in Kew, South West London, the project was developed by and for the author, Tim Lucas, and his family. Lucas was the client, structural engineer, project manager and contractor. A significant element of the brief and the resulting architecture was to build the house around a central courtyard. The design was conceived so that the house was presented as two buildings, joined by a glazed circulation link. This strategy breaks up the visual mass of the house, whilst acknowledging the scale and character of the surrounding houses with their layered gabled-roof forms (1-6).
16
