This project is about turning a house upside down. The site is the end of unit of Benson and Forsyth’s seminal Mansfield Road Terrace.

The original organisation placed a kitchen at the first half-level, living room on the second, bedrooms on the third and roof terrace at the fourth, accessed via the child’s bedroom.

The instant response was that the shell had great bones but that the organisation was less satisfactory.

Having lived for years in a ground floor flat, the owners realised that in a city, an outdoor space and a view of the sky (or as the Smithson’s put it, a vertical tube of unbreathed air) are the ultimate luxury.