The latest instalment of our film series takes you inside the family home of architects Katy Woollacott and Patrick Gilmartin, designed on a tight plot in a conservation area in Hampstead. The awkwardness of the site conditioned a thoughtful and detailed response, one that had to solve problems of space, light, overlooking and the need to blend in with the surrounding architecture – a puzzle that led them to liken the project to solving a Rubik’s Cube. Watch the film here.

Patrick and Katy are a husband-and-wife practice who first met studying at Cambridge in 1992, and later went to Princeton University to complete their architecture education. They both worked for international practices for several years after, before establishing their own studio in 2000. Their work is defined by a light-handed modernity, one that tempers contemporary design and construction with tactile materiality and a sensitivity to the context of the buildings they work on.

A core component of their work is drawing, for which they have won the Royal Academy Drawing Prize. Their starting point when designing is always putting pen to paper, and they say, ‘We know a design is complete when we can draw every space from any viewpoint, from memory’. The same applied to the design of their own home, with the couple conceiving everything from simple outlines of the exterior to complex diagrams of the ventilation paths in the house that describe how thermal stability is achieved.

The completed house, finished in 2019, is a model of sustainable, contextual and contemporary design. In marrying modern materials, building techniques and advances in energy performance with clever but simple architecture, and mediating it all with a need for their home to have a ‘looseness and a comfort’, Patrick and Katy have achieved a special thing: a contemporary home that has soul.

For the full tour, and to hear more about Patrick and Katy’s thoughts on architecture, family life and the design of their home, watch the film here. And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can step into the homes of Ruth and Richard Rogers, Deyan Sudjic, Roger Zogolovitch and many more.