Masters of Design: the boat-inspired house of architect and independent developer Roger Zogolovitch
For the final instalment in this batch of our Masters of Design series, we’re paying a visit to architect Roger Zogolovitch’s boat-inspired house near Poole, Dorset, designed in collaboration with Mole Architects and the recipient of two RIBA awards and a paragon in split-level living. Watch the film here.
Roger is the founder and creative director of Solidspace, an independent developer focused on unearthing the potential of backland gap sites rarely noticed by mainstream housebuilders. By skillfully utilising overlooked sites in the urban environment – adjacent to railroads or between and above office buildings, for instance – Roger proposes intelligent design solutions to the challenges of providing enough homes for a growing population.
Inside his innovative spaces that function, in Roger’s own words, as ‘additions to the city’, one finds durable materials, maximised internal volume and a clever interplay of the studio’s trademark ‘Eat/Work/Live’ split sections that allow for flexible alteration between different degrees of privacy and openness. One of Roger’s most recent interventions to London’s urban landscape, the 2018 Weston Street apartment block in Bermondsey, designed in collaboration with Stirling Prize-winning architect Simon Allford of AHMM, executes this beautifully, and picked up RIBA National and London prizes for their being ‘exquisitely crafted modern homes’.
As a thought-leader in development practice, Roger has held roles as director of the Cities Programme at the London School of Economics and president of the Architectural Association, and currently serves as the Honorary Surveyor to the Royal Academy of Arts. In 2015, he published a critically-acclaimed book, Shouldn’t we all be developers?, in support of fellow independent developers whose mission is shaped by the belief that a home is not simply a commodity, but a human right.
Away from the city, Roger escapes to his home near Poole, Dorset for what he calls an ‘analogue retreat’. To hear Roger talk about the inspirations behind the building, which resembles an up-turned boat and which is both eccentric and serene, fun and functional, watch our film here.
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