The Vegetarian Cottage
The Vegetarian Cottage is a four-bedroom Victorian family home in Hackney, elegantly adapted to the life of a modern family while retaining tradition at its heart.
Our clients, a family of six, had outgrown their home and needed an extra bedroom and better configuration of the ground floor to make the house more usable, whilst respecting the spirit of its original form and interior. Our sensitive remodelling features a new double height extension which blends seamlessly into the existing building, demonstrating that contemporary architecture and London’s historic housing fabric can work in harmony.
Where possible, materials were carefully re-used in the construction process, in keeping with the East London tradition of using locally sourced materials. Wrapping around the rear of the house, a large frameless corner window offers a distinctive focal point to the design, while a new open-plan living space now completely opens up the garden – both visually and physically – evoking a feeling of ‘al fresco’ living all year round.
‘Cousins & Cousins took our functional requirements and created a space we never expected and made it beautiful. They were very accommodating of what we wanted and made it better than we could have imagined but they didn’t impose what they wanted. They saw more ambitious options and presented a range of ideas to choose from.’
-Rachel Sylvester