Owned by a pair of architects, this East Dulwich property, known as the ‘Pocket House’, is both their own home and the first professional project of their practice, Tikari Works. The 80m2 plot, previously the site of a domestic car garage, had a buildable area of just 35m2, so Tikari were obliged to build down rather than out, excavating the entire site in order to fit half of the house underground.
Above the surface, two storeys hold the main living areas and the kitchen, which Tikari asked Uncommon Projects to help create. Working to preliminary drawings created by the architects, Uncommon Projects refined the designs for the kitchen, developing prototypes of joints to determine how the thin frames they'd specified could be engineered to work effectively, and installing the finished pieces. The house has since won the RIBA London Award 2019, been shortlisted in the Wood Awards 2019 and was featured on Grand Designs RIBA House of the Year.
