Bureau de Change redefines a “granny annexe” in West London, blending Art Deco influences with modern touches

Nestled into the far end of a 30m long suburban garden in Uxbridge, west London, with its highly stylized form and lively materials palette, Uxbridge Bower is a granny annexe like no other.

Designed by Bureau de Change to provide fully accessible discrete living quarters for the client’s mother and grandmother when she visits from native Greece, the new annexe offers both privacy and connection, enabling intergenerational living when the three generations come together in London.

The single storey 30 sqm pavilion is compact in its design adhering to the height and mass restrictions stipulated by permitted development. It features a bedroom space facing onto the garden and an adjoining private ensuite, as well as cleverly integrating and concealing garden storage at the rear. It is sited and designed to be connected to and accessed via the existing property’s garden.

“Its design borrows from Art Deco of the local area, a decorative style of bold geometric shapes and bright colors, often characterized by low relief and stepped decorative panels around entrances and windows and roofs”.

Uxbridge Bower has a hexagonal plan, a design strategy to minimize the mass of the pavilion whilst creating heightened drama through a series of columns which frame each elevation. This series of columns is read as a continuous line which runs seamlessly into the flat roof. Three of the elevations are glazed, fitted with sliding doors, offering a view of the garden, and a projecting veranda creates a sheltered shared space where three generations of the family can congregate.

Uxbridge Bower is built with CLT and is finished with textured render and bush hammered terrazzo which lines the openings of the veranda. The inner elevations of the columns and the underside of the ceiling in the veranda are painted in a warm ochre so that it glows in all seasons.

Facts & Credits:

Title: Uxbridge Bower, Typology: Residential extension, Location: Uxbridge – London Borough of Hillingdon, Architecture: Bureau de Change, Structural engineer: Element structures, Contractor: STEC Construction, Gross internal area: 30 m², Status Completed: 2023, Text description: Bureau de Change, Photography: Gilbert McCarragher

About Bureau de Change Architects:

Bureau de Change is an award winning architecture practice founded by Katerina Dionysopoulou and Billy Mavropoulos. Its work is a direct product of the founders’ upbringing, passions and experiences – combining the pragmatism and formality of their architectural training with a desire to bring a sense of theatre, playfulness and innovation to the design of spaces, products and environments. The result is a studio where rigorous thinking and analysis are brought to life through prototyping, testing and making.

The practice is celebrated for its highly inventive and playful private residences, which celebrate material, form and light, including Folds House, Haringey (2015); Step House, Hampstead (2018); Frame House, Clapham (2020); and the Long House in the Cotswolds (2020); as well as richly textured commercial projects such as The Interlock, Fitzrovia (2019), The Gaslight, Fitzrovia (2020), Black Kite Studios, London, a customised studio fit-out for independent special effects and design agency Black Kite (2022) and The Trampery studios at Fish Island Village (2022). The practice has won numerous awards, including FX Breakthrough Talent of the Year 2016, The Sunday Times Architect of the Year Award 2019 and a Design Week Award (Black Kite Studios) in 2023.