1A, Greenholm Road

Private house, 1966, designed by Edward Cullinan and Ian Pickering for John and Wendy Garrett. Extended by Cullinan in 1973.

The house is a suburban detached two-storey building constructed on a narrow infill site at the end of a row of early 20th-century houses. It is built from reclaimed London stock brick with a timber frame for the first floor, over exposed reinforced concrete beams. Window frames are of stained timber. The ground floor has a base of reclaimed London stock brick, and the first floor is set back from the ground floor along its north side. The deep northerly pitch of the roof was originally felt with slate chippings but has been re-roofed. The narrow south pitch is glazed. Brick boundary walls to the front and sides form an integral part of the composition.

The plan responds to the confined site with ground floor accommodation solidly sub-divided into bedrooms, bathroom and garage on the north and south sides, providing privacy, sound-proofing and a sense of enclosure. The main entrance is in the north elevation, leading to a central lobby. Compact bedrooms are arranged along the north side: the main bedroom and guest room, with two smaller interconnecting children's rooms between. Along the south side are the garage, bathroom and utility room. The first floor is a single open-plan space divided into a living area at the east end and dining and kitchen areas to the west by a central spiral staircase encased in a solid brick core. The kitchen opens on to a rear terrace and grassed ramp to the garden.

The east street facade has timber garage doors, a high-level bedroom window to the north, and at first-floor level vertical glazing and opening timber panels up to the roof line. The west garden elevation is similar at first-floor level, with replacement timber doors from the kitchen opening on to the terrace. The south elevation is a blank brick wall on the site boundary with a small parapet concealing the glazed pitched roof behind. The north facade is dominated by the pitched roof at first-floor level, stepped near its base, with the two levels linked by a strip of windows angled outwards. At ground-floor level, the brick wall with parapet is punctuated by a band of windows beneath concrete lintels, with a cantilevered concrete canopy above the front door.

A single-storey rear garden room extension with bathroom and stores was added in 1973, connected to the house by a glazed passageway. This extension is of brick, with a roof forming a brick-paved terrace and grassed ramp. The north facade is dominated by an arched glazed link, with the garden extension slightly below ground level. Its walls slope down to the garden and are angled to partly enclose a small decked terrace. The original sliding doors have been replaced, and to their west is a porthole window.

Inside, brick walls and the stairwell are painted white. The first floor is open to the steeply pitched timber-lined roof and has prominent exposed timber beams. The ground-floor ceilings are rendered and painted white, open to a strip of timber-lined pitched roof along the north side, with an added skylight above the front door. The extension has a flat timber-lined ceiling. Internal doors are stained timber. Original fitted furniture remains in the living space, unpainted along the north side, painted bright yellow and orangey-red in the children's bedrooms, and painted white in the main bedroom. Units on the south side of the kitchen have been refitted (original units remain on the north side) and the bathroom has been remodelled. There have been some minor alterations since 1973, with the bathroom and kitchen areas substantially remodelled in the late 1990s.

The structural engineer was S Jampel & Partners and the main contractor was EG Kirk & Son. Cullinan's early private houses represent a body of work before his architectural practice became well known for socially-minded offices, housing and community buildings. These were important commissions providing opportunities to explore domestic design themes early in his career, revealing his combined interest in Modernism and the Arts and Crafts Movement. No. 1a Greenholm Road was one of Cullinan's earliest house designs, sharing much with his slightly earlier urban houses at No. 62 Camden Mews (1963-64), designed as his family home, and No. 12 Bartholomew Villas (also known as Kawecki House, 1964-65). Here he developed ideas of open-plan living on a small scale, with the relationship of the house to its surroundings as a key consideration. The house is a good and little-altered example of Cullinan's early work and domestic design, featuring an imaginative plan, rich textures in the use of materials and fitted furniture, of a very personal design.