44 Britton Street

Town house of 1986-1988 for Janet Street-Porter, designed by Piers Gough of CZWG and built by Mike Di Marco.

STRUCTURE and MATERIALS: brick cavity wall construction with concrete floors, glazed tile roof and window frames and balconies of galvanised steel.

PLAN: the building, on the north side of the junction of Britton Street and Albion Place, has a canted street corner and bowed rear wall, to preserve the neighbouring building’s rights to light. Entrance is into an enclosed courtyard on Albion Place.

Each storey has a different plan, with the stair running along the curved rear wall. The ground floor was formerly the billiard room with guest bedroom and adjoining bathroom; the first-floor was an open-plan bedroom, leading to a dressing room and with access to an en-suite bathroom. The second floor was an open-plan sitting-cum-dining room with kitchen and utility room adjoining to south. An external spiral staircase gives access to a roof terrace and a roof-top studio office.

EXTERIOR: the external elevations are brick laid in stretcher bond, graduated in four shades from brown to buff. The windows are of vertical proportion with diagonal glazing bars and pre-cast concrete lintels to simulate rustic logs; six bays to Albion Place and two bays to Britton Street. The lower windows have sills running at 45 degrees which align with diagonal lattice screens of galvanised steel which oversail the brick walls. The helm roof is clad in blue glazed pantiles. The gable to Albion Place is entirely glazed with diamond-pattern glazing bars which correspond to the diagonal grid of the elevations. The canted corner contains first- and second-floor balconies, of contrasting size and design but triangular in plan. They are echoed by a second-floor balcony central to the Albion Place elevation, which is a conical form of metalwork set into a diamond-shaped opening. A triangular plaque forms the top angle of the diamond and is inscribed ‘J / SP / 1987 / CZWG / ARCHITS / DI MARCO / CONSTRUCTION’.

A diagonal pattern of glazed bricks set into the courtyard elevation articulates the internal staircase. Adjoining this is the metal spiral stair to the roof terrace.

INTERIORS: not inspected (2017). Street-Porter's interiors are largely refurbished, in white-painted plaster with wooden floors, but retaining to a large degree the original plans.