Open City Architecture London Architecture Tours: An evening with Quay House

This evening tour provides a rare opportunity to tour Quay House by Quay2c a multi-disciplinary design practice of architects, designers and artists.

Architect Ken Taylor and Sculptor Julia Manheim will host this evening tour of their home, as featured on BBC4, the Discovery Channel series ”World’s Greenest Homes”, Channel 5's “I Own Britain's Best Home" and in the forthcoming Open House 20th anniversary photographic book, out in September.

This conversion of a derelict 1930s milk depot including an architect's workspace, studio area and home with a new-build development of three flats above was completed in 2 phases. The principal design idea was to try and keep the simple industrial “urban barn” qualities of the building. This was not for nostalgic reasons but rather to reveal, as an archaeologist might enjoy, the previous uses and transformations that the building had undergone.

Phase 1 saw the replacing of the back half of the roof to have the private spaces, including a courtyard created by demolishing leaking outbuildings. The more “public” spaces are located towards the street. Building four "Beach Huts" clad in western red cedar boarding, fitting between the trusses created three bedrooms and a bathroom. This iconography set the design theme for the building, bringing the seaside to Peckham!

Phase 2 was the addition over the front half of the building of 3 loft style apartments. The green translucent sea coloured wall to the south sits lightly on the old brickwork wall of the milk depot.
Quay2c Architects

With a complimentary glass of prosecco on arrival.
Duration 1 hour. Quay House, 2c Kings Grove, SE15 2NB
Limited places, cost £34.50