ABOUT US

Eldridge London designs extraordinary homes for remarkable people. They have a 20-year track record of delivering the finest contemporary houses, winning the Manser Medal for the best one-off house in the UK, along with being shortlisted for the Stirling Prize and assorted RIBA, Civic Trust and industry awards. They offer our discerning clientele a personal boutique service and relish the opportunity each new project presents to create a sophisticated and exciting home.

Nick Eldridge founded Eldridge London in 1998 and the practice has established a reputation for imaginative, sophisticated bespoke homes in the UK and beyond. The practice’s first project, The Lawns, a House in Highgate Village was the first private house to be nominated for the Stirling Prize and also won RIBA and Civic Trust awards. Subsequent projects including the landmark House in Highgate Cemetery, and the angular House in Epsom, firmly established the practice as designers of remarkable dwellings, with both shortlisted for the RIBA House of the Year (Manser Medal), demonstrating our commitment to inventive and creative design responses. The House in Coombe Park subsequently won the Manser Medal for the best one-off home in the UK. We have won the Building Design Architect of the Year Award for One-off Houses as well as having been a finalist on two further occasions.

Our projects are known for their strong conceptual site response and the refinement and sophistication of detailing, which often extends into the landscapes we create alongside the architecture to form a holistic site composition. We are a small boutique studio providing a discrete and personal service to our discerning clientele, with a sister studio in Cornwall, Eldridge Newlyn.

The practice has also completed a number of high-profile retail, commercial and cultural projects including interiors for Selfridges Birmingham, O2’s Mobile Applications Development Centre, the Design Council Headquarters, The Business and Intellectual Property Centre and a restaurant at the British Library and the Globe Theatre’s Sackler Studios.

How would you describe your style?

"Whilst we do not have an explicit practice ‘style’ there is a consistency to thought and process which delivers contemporary buildings of imagination and sophistication. From an analysis of the site and brief we seek to draw out what is specific and special about a place, and then use this as the driver for a creative response. In this way, we see context as a starting point for something remarkable. The design grows out of the site specifics, and each individual site deserves to be enriched by design, rather than merely seeking to ‘fit in'."

Please describe a recently completed project or tell us about the bespoke service that you offer

"Eldridge London’s House in Coombe Park, Kingston, is located in a secluded enclave of inter-war suburban bungalows, and takes a markedly contrasting approach to the redevelopment of the site from the pastiche neoclassical neighbours being built nearby. The surprising appearance of the building is generated from the specifics of its site and context but allied to a fully functional plan with the owner committing to the architects’ imaginative contemporary design. Whilst unexpected in appearance, in their unanimous support of the scheme the Kingston Planning Design Review panel, described the building as a “quintessentially ‘Coombe’ house.” They noted that Eldridge London “has created a beautiful house, uniquely responding to its setting and its landscape with the most elegant spatial ordering. It adds an architectural richness to the townscape around.” Upon completion the project won the Manser Medal for the best one-off house in the UK.

The lower garden level which houses the main living spaces is accessed via a suspended staircase in oak and brass which descends from the street level through a glazed double-height entrance rotunda. A secondary stair spirals up within the central concrete core to allow occupants to move between the levels in privacy. Large curved rooflights in the street level landscape allow generous daylighting into a gym and guest bedroom at the rear of the house whilst the master suite occupies the entire first floor, hovering amongst the tree canopies.

Natural materials predominate throughout, with oak flooring, stairs and furniture providing a warm complement to the finely finished exposed concrete, and providing a material link to the focal oak tree. Polished brass and stainless steel elements, internal white marble and external grey limestone paving add a further level of refinement. The rigorous planning of the house has been carried through into the detailed design, with the ‘trefoil’ shape of the building repeating through the scheme at different scales as a subtle architectural motif: from the shaped vertical aluminium cladding members on the first floor facades, to pull handles on doors.

The external landscaping scheme has also been designed by Eldridge London following the same geometries as the house to ensure an holistic composition with the existing oak tree again becoming the focal element. This includes a natural swimming pond, utilising marginal aquatic planting to provide natural filtration and cleansing of the water."