17b, Princes Place

This is a mews house over garages, built in 1969-70 by Peter Aldington of Aldington and Craig for Tim Rock, then editor of the Architectural Review. It was designed as a pair of separate studio and flat units. The construction is of concrete block, faced with Lunsford sand-faced blue-brown paving bricks, with board-finished reinforced concrete beams. The roof is a timber mansard, concealed behind a parapet. The building’s tight rectangular plan reflects the footprint of the mews house it replaced.

The house is three storeys high, with a living room, bedroom and kitchen on the first floor, and a studio above ground-floor garages, plus a basement store and photographic darkroom. The studio retains its original double-glazed aluminium patent glazing, while the first floor has single-glazed aluminium framed opening lights set within timber-framed black stained and leaded “clip-on” oriels with solid panels. Timber boarded doors provide access to the garages, and the house is entered through a timber boarded door to the left.

Inside, the stairs are constructed of Douglas fir, with a crossover. The top-floor studio is accessible from both the first-floor flat and directly from the street, allowing the flat to be let separately. Douglas fir is also used for the studio ceiling, with other ceilings of roughly textured screen plaster. Built-in shelves and cupboards, designed by Aldington, are integrated into the overall design. Fitted furniture, including kitchen cupboards and a drop-down table, was incorporated wherever possible to facilitate ease of access within the compact space. The studio’s timber construction is deliberately exposed, "as part of the visual entertainment of the house," as noted in House and Garden magazine in 1971.

The mews house maximizes the potential of its small site, accommodating two garages and two living units on a plot only 14 feet 9 inches deep. It represents a modern interpretation of the traditional mews arrangement of a flat over a coach house, with the built-in fixtures and galley kitchen designed to maximize flexibility within the limited space. Peter Aldington, known for balancing vernacular and modern traditions in his earlier work, applied the same rigor to this urban design project, which pushes his interest in compact planning and built-in furniture to an extreme.