Selected Portfolio
Our architecture tells unique stories about exceptional people.
Always realising a dream.
We are dedicated to pulling every personal and contextual thread, weaving them together to reveal delightfully unexpected details.
Led by the talent and imagination of Jonny Plant, David Crosthwait and Richard Shaw, Rare specialises in transforming the places we live in and enjoy. We pair the warmth and energy of a
nimble studio with the advanced resources and technologies of a well established AJ100 practice of 250+.
This conscious balance gifts our exclusive team the luxury of time to think, chat, question, learn and design inventive, grounded architecture.
What we do
Architecture
Through our storytelling process, we work with our clients to deliver all stages of design development, often acting as the lead consultant. From initial feasibility design through to planning and listed building applications, detailed design and tender, and onto construction.
Interior Design
We craft unique interior design schemes that complement our architectural designs and transform the interior spaces of our buildings
Project Management Conservation
Rare understand heritage architecture. We provide skilled, expert advice on statutory listed buildings, properties of special architectural or historic interest, and buildings in conservation areas.
We draw upon our extensive network of consultants and professionals to create the right team, unique to each project. We lead the project team through all stages, from initial briefing, through to construction and handover.
We
work to a brief derived from our clients’ and their buildings’ unique stories; their needs, history and identity.
From this we design exceptional and relevant homes.
Selected Portfolio
Regent’s Park
Westminster
Carlstone Lodge North London
Park House Central London
Chelsea Embankment
Kensington & Chelsea
London Residence Central London
Chelsea Gate Kensington & Chelsea
Regent’s Park Westminster
By transforming the entire interior outlook of this expansive Terrace apartment, Rare have staged a completely immersive experience of landscape and architecture.
Rare Architects were engaged by an existing client to ‘rethink’ their central London apartment overlooking Regent’s Park.
John Nash’s landscape and the palatial Grade I listed York Terrace, was designed to interact like an auditorium and a stage. With carefully framed views and staged settings, this ‘metropolitan picturesque theatre’ was intended to be enjoyed to and fro between the interiors and the park. Rare have drawn upon the
theatrical interconnectedness of the facade and park inwards, radically modernising and expanding on Nash’s original vision.
In Rare’s interior, the huge 60ft central room is now framed by multiple now ‘opened’ rooms, each with new views; through the columns, across the interiors and beyond across the park. Our design celebrates the terrace’s layers of history. Concrete columns created to remedy extensive WWII bomb damage have been revealed,
cast and multiplied by Rare to dramatic effect.
Spaces with distinctively different characters cleverly connect through new views, through staggered levels and grand double and triple height spaces. Rare’s bespoke hand crafted furniture, delicately balances both Georgian and contemporary sensibilities. The view from each room and of each room is created to be both a backdrop and a dramatic setting, for the unfolding scenes of the occupants life.
The conceptual container of the proposed work is intrinsically linked back to the history of the area and the house. The Victorian Villa was sympathetically restored including the re-alignment of the existing mis-matched rear elevation.
The new extension grows from the
notion of the ‘superior suburb’. It is designed to be impressive.
The scale is mountainous, the walls are thick, the floor-ceiling heights tall, the door spans wide, the floor plan large. Everything is grand and over indulgent with the intention to impress.
The journey through the building from the Victorian compartmentalised darker space to the extension is compressed through a new doorway to allow for a striking revelation of new large and open space.
Carlstone Lodge North London
Park House Central London
Our clients fell in love with this end of terrace Islington town house. Its large reception rooms, impressive floor to ceiling heights, the scale and width of the existing property were identified as defining features. The lower ground and rear addition sat awkwardly against the historic proportions, closed in and dark. A thorough process of client and site interrogation discovered the importance of connections. Recognised as the conceptual container that underpinned the design, Rare formulated a platform in which the relationship between inside – outside, upstairs –downstairs, living – working, loud –quiet could be boundlessly linked. A double height glass extension
was designed to sit gracefully against the rear of the property. Internally, the works transformed the introvert lower ground space, with its closed in corridors and segregated rooms, to an extrovert space that reach out and make connections with the garden and ground floor.
A glazed tryptic - a ground floor balcony, an oriel stair seat and an internal study window – overlooks the double height space, creating playful and connected family spaces.
Chelsea Embankment
Kensington & ChelseaA new roof addition provides a three bedroom penthouse with double-height living area overlooking the river.
Wentworth House is a historic mansion house located on London’s Chelsea embankment. The 20th Century saw the building converted into studio apartments and much of its architectural interest lost. Plans to restore its status were piecemeal and uncoordinated.
Rare Architects were invited to bring clarity to the project and submitted a cohesive application to redevelop the house into luxury apartments.
London Residence Central London
The project was carried out with the Interior Designers Peter Mikic Studio, to realise carefully curated interiors with bespoke and luxurious materials and finishes.
The project involved works to a grand Grade II listed semidetached villa including the replacement of an existing rear extension with a new enlarged extension, developing and extending the dilapidated outbuilding (former coach house) to the rear of the garden into a separate guesthouse and complete refurbishment of the existing house, reinstating it to a single dwelling from its previous configuration of having a separate flat at lower ground floor level. The concept sought to connect the main house with the garden and rare surviving Coach House building to its rear, which had fallen into disrepair.
By orientating the new extension to the house to address the extension to the rear garden building, the concept sought to reestablish the connection between these two elements by using sharded materially and design language to do so. The garden then becomes the link between the two. The extensions were finished with a colour to match the leaf of one of the most prominent trees in the garden.
The project was carried out with the Interior Designers Peter Mikic Studio, to realise carefully curated interiors with bespoke and luxurious materials and finishes.
Chelsea Gate
Kensington & Chelsea
The scheme was to reconfigure a duplex flat in modern apartment building in Chelsea to provide an open plan layout at 5th floor level and accommodate 3 bedrooms and 3 en suites at sixth floor level, with plenty of storage space.
A second phase of the project involved extending the 5th floor level to provide further space for a dining area opening to a terrace.
The creative strategy for the project sought to achieve a sense of visual transition, following the concept of the 3 planes of depth found in Chinese landscape painting: Background (Heaven), Middle Ground (emptiness) and foreground (earth).
Who we are
Jonny Plant
David Crosthwait Rebecca Platt
Director Director
With a career spanning over 25 years and with expertise across a number of architectural sectors, much of Jonny’s skill and passion has been spent developing one off, crafted houses. What underpins Jonny’s work is a rigorous approach to design, storytelling, craftsmanship, placemaking and sustainability.
E jplant@rare-architects.co.uk M 07966 413 634
David has a wealth of residential experience in the prime London market. He enjoys crafting and delivering individual, narrative driven, design responses to his clients’ aspirations. Consistently delivering above and beyond expectations. Navigating a course though our complex planning and regulatory systems and managing construction with multiple specialist trades.
E dcrosthwait@rare-architects.co.uk M 07943483739
Associate ArchitectRebecca has been Project Lead Architect for a variety of residential projects across London, with a particular interest in the redevelopment of complex, heritage sensitive sites and the creative re-use of existing buildings for unique homes. Her approach is driven by dialogue and collaboration to evolve bespoke design responses that are site-specific, intelligently resolved, enduring, and valuable.
Richard Shaw Rebecca Godden Laura Fernandez
Associate Architect
Richard has over 20 years’ experience, with a focus on the private residential sector, working closely with clients on projects on some of London’s best addresses. Richard takes inspiration from travel, art and design, recently spending a year living and collaborating on projects in Japan. Alongside design he has an in-depth knowledge of the planning process and particular experience of working with the context of Listed and Heritage properties.
Interior Designer ArchitectFollowing the completion of her Interior Architecture & Design Degree, Rebecca has worked on a variety of residential schemes and has a passion for creating bespoke homes, truly distinctive and unique and to each client. Working closely with Architects, Rebecca ensures the spaces she curates work in harmony with the Architecture.
Laura is an accomplished Project Architect who has expertise with private residential projects across various scales from design to completion ensuring design quality is upheld throughout the process. With a commitment to collaboration and a design-driven approach, she navigates complexities whilst crafting sitespecific solutions that are as unique as they are functional. Each project becomes a testament to her passion for architectural excellence and her dedication to transforming spaces into inspired environments.
How we do it
Always original Excellence as standard Diligent by design
Resourceful curiosity
Mutual trust
Brave instincts
We are Rare:
Every design is exclusive to each client and their story. Inventiveness is an essential design tool in our practice. Our architects have established a reputation for delivering bold, yet subtle architecture; never ordinary, but always grounded.
We are architects, analysts and authors; our designs tell the stories we write. We rigorously quiz our clients’ hopes, dreams and ambitions. We are meticulous in our research of site, history, context and landscape.
From the talent of our team to the quality of materials; we bring together a respected network of skilled experts, craftspeople, and artisans. We work with highly respected clients and we are privileged to bring new life to buildings designed by noteworthy architects.
We are enthusiastically thorough. We ask questions and listen well. We are always learning and approach every opportunity with an open mind, from the smallest design detail to the big challenges we face as a society.
We are known for our honesty, integrity and diplomacy. Our clients entrust their vision to us, secure in the knowledge that we will deliver, without compromising their privacy. Our team, clients and network benefit from the certainty, stability and resource of a large practice.
We delight in unexpected details. We love to surprise our clients, and sometimes ourselves. We leave our egos behind, taking inspiration from our clients’ lives, their dreams, their site and landscapes. Sometimes playful, sometimes bold, always intuitive, never boring.
21-27 Lamb’s Conduit Street, Holborn, London. WC1N 3NL
Rare-Architects.co.uk
Info@Rare-Architects.co.uk 0207 842 0820