Venus
Elfort Road, London N5

SOLD

Architect: Chance de Silva

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"So much thought went into every detail of the building... we’re always referring to it for inspiration" - Chance de Silva

Built in Highbury in 1998, Venus is the first residential project completed by award-winning architectural practice Chance de Silva. Inspired by the machiya, or traditional wooden town houses of Kyoto, Venus addresses the street in a private, reserved manner, before opening out on the upper storeys to truly dramatic effect. It has a private garden at the rear, as well as a balcony.

At street-level, the facade of recycled London brick stock appears to join with a neighbouring garden wall. As the eye travels up to the first and second floors the elegant tones of post-patinated copper loom up and out, allowing leafy views to the rear, while a modern interpretation of the characteristic glazing, known in Japan as mushiko mado, creates privacy from the street below.

The Kyoto townhouses are normally formed of wooden lattice work on the ground floors and Chance de Silva cleverly reference this in the woodwork lining one side of the entrance hall. There are narrow oak floorboards underfoot and Douglas Fir louvres form two sets of doors leading down to the ground floor reception room; a space which the current owners have used variously as a study and bedroom.

This space has exposed brick along one side of the plan and a beautiful steel pillar positioned in front of full height, steel-framed glazing which opens out onto the paved garden at the rear. Elegant slate tiles run underfoot, out into the garden; combined with the thin-framed glazing, they seek to dissolve the boundary between inside and out, allowing life and light to flow freely across the plan. A bathroom with micro-tiles, high-level windows and a wood-clad bath occupies the remainder of the ground floor.

An elegant steel staircase leads up to the first floor. Glass bricks allow light to pour across the staircase and dining area. This floor is configured largely as an open-plan reception room. There are oak floorboards underfoot, leading to full-height glazing at the rear and balcony, overlooking the garden below and the neighbouring treetops. As with the ground floor, this space has brickwork along one aspect; on this floor it has been painted white.

A kitchen is positioned to the other side of the staircase. It has wooden worktops and all of its original fittings. A gridded metal screen allows light in, while lateral windows wrap the kitchen counter offering views over the street. The ceiling is partially vaulted, mirroring the sweeping barrel-vault of the mezzanine above.

An open-tread steel staircase leads up to the mezzanine level. It is here that the sweeping arch of the ceiling and the volume inherent with such a feature, become immediately apparent. Further sections of glazing wrap the rear of the plan, as well as the front, over the kitchen. A balustrade of steel mesh accentuates this sense of light and volume.

You can read a full interview with architects Stephen Chance and Wendy de Silva, who have recently revisited Venus, over twenty years since they first designed the house here. Of the design, they have remarked, “The project had a big influence on our later work. There are number of design features that we have reused… I think we’ve always striven to recreate the qualities of warmth and toughness and light, and the flexible uses of space, on all the subsequent projects.”

Venus is named after a former fashion workshop called Venus Fashions, positioned on Elfort Road in leafy North London. Elfort Road is a quiet residential street a short walk from Arsenal Tube station.

The house is perfectly positioned for the best of Highbury, Islington and neighbouring Stoke Newington. The much-admired shops and restaurants of Highbury are all within easy reach, including Godfrey’s butchers, Bourne’s fishmongers, Da Mario deli and the original outpost of La Fromagerie, all at Highbury Barn. More local favourites include Westerns Laundry, Farang, The Highbury Arts Club and the Highbury Library. Blackstock Road, Holloway Road and Stoke Newington all offer a great selection of coffee shops, bars and restaurants.

Local green spaces include Highbury Fields and Clissold Park, as well as smaller parks such as the Ecology Centre by Drayton Park and the Olden Garden community garden on Whistler Street.

Venus is excellently positioned for transport. Arsenal is the closest Tube station running Piccadilly line services citywide. Highbury & Islington station (for Overground and Victoria Line services) is a walk away through Highbury Fields, via tennis courts, a playground and a swimming pool. Overground services run from Drayton Park, as well as services to Paris’s Gare du Nord, via St Pancras International, making Paris only two stops from the house.

You can read more about Venus and Chance de Silva in our Open House feature here.

Please note that all areas, measurements and distances given in these particulars are approximate and rounded. The text, photographs and floor plans are for general guidance only. The Modern House has not tested any services, appliances or specific fittings — prospective purchasers are advised to inspect the property themselves. All fixtures, fittings and furniture not specifically itemised within these particulars are deemed removable by the vendor.


History

Upon completion in 1998, Venus first opened as an art gallery. The house was a collaboration between architects Chance de Silva and their friend Graham Cooper, a financial journalist and art provocateur.

The group decided to furnish the spaces sparsely, to merely hint at the domestic functions of each room and allow the installations space to affect their audience. Some of these pieces of art and furniture have been returned to the house in 2020, as Chance de Silva bring Venus to market for the first time since it was designed and built.

“Originally we worked with three artists: Matt Hale, who made two integrated art pieces, one of glass tubes filled with domestic fluids such as shampoo and detergent; Frank Watson who made three photographic light boxes; and Graham Cooper who made “3-Minute Venus” a time lapse film of the building under construction. The whole idea of working with artists and integrating their work into projects has been perpetuated through Chance de Silva’s practice.”

The collaboration arose from a conversation in the pub between Matt Hale and Stephen Chance about the direction of travel of architecture and artists who were  making installations or making work that adapted found buildings.

During construction, the house quickly gathered interest with architects, the national press and members of the public alike. Shortly after the private view, at the behest of friends, Stephen Chance and Wendy de Silva decided to live in the house themselves.

Venus’s striking design was influenced primarily by the typical Kyoto machiya; a long wooden home with narrow street frontage, stretching deep into the city block and often containing one or more small courtyard gardens or tsuboniwa. Venus is a modern interpretation incorporating these elements into flexible spaces after the manner of Tadao Ando and Toyo Ito.

Chance de Silva have remarked of their influences, “Of course there were other architectural ideas in the project, such as the copper cladding of the top part of the house which was influenced by the capping of a balustrade fence post in the Kiyomizudera Temple in Kyoto. And the curving of the ceiling planes on the upper floor, which might have been influenced by Philippe Starck‘s Nani Nani building in Tokyo. But whatever conceptual design ideas and influences there might be in the long gestating duration of a design process, the important thing is that everything comes together into a seamless logically coherent totality, so that everything looks just so.”

In line with this aesthetic, the house expresses the very best of simple, quality materials; the brickwork is recycled from the demolished building that formerly occupied the site; while the copper cladding was chosen for its longevity and can last up to 100 years. These materials were also selected for their propensity to age and gain patina.

Over twenty years since it was completed, Chance de Silva maintain that there is nothing they would change about the house, citing its flexible living arrangements as the key factor in its enduring, lasting appeal.

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