Designed and built by Henning Stummel as his own family home and architecture practice, The Workshop was ultimately sold to a prominent artist to serve as a studio. The former furniture workshop occupies a backlot behind a Victorian terrace, accessed only through warehouse doors with no indication as to what lies within. The main volume of the former workshop is preserved in its entirety, with steps that lead down to a 14 metre double-height living space, lit by electrically operated skylights in the steel and glass roof.

The new living accommodation forms a series of plywood boxes stacked at the far end of the space, creating an irregular internal facade. In the original scheme, the living space was further bisected by a freestanding storage unit that formed shelving for the architecture office on one side and kitchen cabinets on the other. The kitchen incorporated a dining area, and there is also a modest external courtyard accessed from this floor.

Photography: French + Tye

Our From the Archive series takes excerpts and images from ‘The Modern House‘ by Jonathan Bell, Matt Gibberd and Albert Hill – a publication written and produced to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Produced in 2015, this book offers our own distinctive snapshot of what it means to live in a modern way in Britain.