Architects Katy Woollacott and Patrick Gilmartin open the doors to their ‘Rubik’s Cube House’, built on a tight plot in Hampstead
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.
RELATED ON THE MODERN HOUSE
Ian Collins on the joys of living in a beautifully crafted, eco-friendly home in Cambridge
Creatives David and Henrietta Villiers, of design agency Studio Pond, on building a contemporary house inspired by Suffolk’s coastal vernacular and spectacular landscape
My Modern House: inspired by its dramatic setting, two architects design an urban “cabin in the woods” in East Berlin
Open House: Joe Watson, the director of public programmes at Sotheby’s Institute of Art and his wife Clementine, on life in BedZED, Britain's first carbon-neutral mixed-use neighbourhood
Chronicles of Modernism: the enduring legacy and humanity of Ernö Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower
My Modern House: architect Jamie Fobert opens the door to the Victorian warehouse in Clerkenwell he converted in the early 2000s
Imagined Spaces: how authors write fictional architecture
Open House: designer Jason MacLean, of Studio MacLean, on his 15-year love affair with a modernist infill house in Camberwell
Chronicles of Modernism: the empowering vision of architect Walter Segal’s self-build movement
My Modern House: the contemporary country interiors of Annabelle Tugby’s home and studio in Cheshire