No. 78 South Hill Park

No. 78 South Hill Park is a private house designed by Brian Housden for himself from 1958 onwards and built between 1963 and 1965.

The house is constructed with a concrete post and slab superstructure supported on a raft of reinforced-concrete ground beams. The walls between these structural elements are formed of concrete blocks faced with Venetian white glass mosaic, panels of Nevada glass lenses three centimetres thick (made by the German manufacturer Siemens) set in concrete frames reinforced with aluminium, and bands of narrow Crittall windows.

The building comprises two and a half storeys above a lower-ground floor. A concrete bridge above the kitchen provides access to the street-level carport and front door. The lower-ground floor contains an open-plan kitchen, dining and living space. The ground floor accommodates study areas for Housden and his wife, while bedrooms are arranged over the first and mezzanine floors. Two stairs serve the building: a straight flight connecting ground floor to lower-ground floor, and a dog-leg cantilevered stair between ground floor and the upper floors.

On the front elevation, the heavy reinforced-concrete roof tray sits well below the height of the neighbouring Victorian-inspired post-war houses on either side. The composition is idiosyncratic, with recessed and projecting forms in exposed concrete and glass-lens panels punctuated by horizontal bands of Crittall windows. The half-storey is expressed externally with an offset bay over the carport, from which the rest of the building is set back. The carport canopy projects beyond the building line of the street.

The rear elevation is largely flush, except for a full-width steel balcony at ground-floor level and a square oriel window projecting from the first floor. A wide folding glass door opens from the lower-ground floor into the garden. The elevation above is formed entirely of glass-lens panels and Crittall windows set between the concrete frame.

Internally, the house divides into two distinct zones: one and a half storeys of bedrooms clustered around the cantilevered stair, and a large, partially double-height space on the entrance and garden levels housing the communal areas. From the enlarged step at the bottom of the stairs at garden level, all living elements are visible: the kitchen, dining and sitting areas, study areas for both residents, and the heating and boiler arrangements. The interior is characterised by untreated board-marked concrete ceilings and exposed services snaking through the spaces. Floors are generally surfaced in blue or white mosaic tile, with colour changes marking different functional areas. Built-in elements are sparse, the principal exceptions being laboratory sinks in the kitchen set in a free-standing masonry island and built-in plastered brick bed frames in the bedrooms. The aesthetic is deliberately functional and honest, though some more lavish natural materials, such as marble capping on the stair balustrade, have been added over time. Extensive use of glass lenses provides soft, diffuse natural light that accentuates the sculptural quality of the interior, though views outward are generally limited to bands of clear Crittall glazing positioned at sitting or reclining level.

At street level, a low concrete boundary wall surrounds the front area and acts as a balustrade for the steps down to the lower-ground floor. The number '78' is cast into the wall. Original fixings remain in place which once held black steel gates and fencing panels, installed later and subsequently removed.

In the garden is a shallow circular pool with four square stepping stones and a central square planter.