Having graduated from the Architectural Association in the early 1950s, Brian Housden sought to build a house for his family that would draw on influences he had acquired from his studies, and a number of pivotal trips to some seminal houses across Europe.

By 1958, Housden had acquired a site next to a run of mid-century townhouses, built in 1954 by Howell and Amis, a bombed site that overlooked the southern end of Hampstead Heath. Housden set about designing a house for his family, which joined a great wealth of influences and ideas, three of which resonate in particular.

The first came from a trip to visit the Rietveld-Schroder house in Holland. As described in the Historic England listing: "…the Housdens met Truus Schroder-Schrader and Gerrit Rietveld at the house in Utrecht on which the two had collaborated in 1924. The Rietveld Schroder House was a built demonstration of the very close relationship Mrs Schroder sought with her three children, and the principal accommodation on the first floor is a single space defined by built-in furniture and folding screens. The Rietveld Schroder House is the principal-built monument of the de Stijl movement in art and architecture, in which the construction of the house is revealed as a series of interlocking planes with different elements painted in bright colours like a Mondriaan painting…"

"… At their meeting Mrs Housden admired Rietveld's furniture, and he promised her 'a collection'. Subsequently the Housdens acquired fourteen original pieces, made for them on Rietveld's instructions by van der Groenekan. The collection was given to them for the cost of the materials and transportation. The new house had thus to be designed to contain these important pieces."

The second significant influence occurred during the same trip to Holland, where the Housdens visited the Amsterdam Orphanage design by an international group known as Team X, that included architect Aldo van Eyck. The orphanage was designed for the use children, with different spaces and facilities for the varying ages, which resonated with the Housden’s drive to build a family house. Van Eyck’s use of fixed furniture, built in to the fabric of the house, was a concept that Housden had encountered and admired when studying the work of Adolf Loos. The technique arose from the idea of the house like a built landscape, or city. As Housden described the concept in his unpublished text The Imaginative Function of Buildings:“for the City is but one great house, or family, so every family, or private house, is a little city”.

The third, and ostensibly the most obvious of influences, is Pierre Chareau’s Maison de Verre, a milestone of early Modern architectural design. Built in 1932, the house uses various industrial and mechanical fixtures juxtaposed with a traditional style of home furnishings all under the transparency and lightness of the glass brick façade. The exposed steel framework and exposed services expressed a functional style that rejected historical design references.

Beyond the Modern European influences that surfaced in South Hill Park, Housden expressed an interest in Greek and Renaissance classicism. As described in the Historic England listing: “… Housden extended this reference to include the mandalas of Eastern mythology, here taking the simple form of a circle within a square, and expressed in the shuttering of the ceilings over the carport, study, dining table and master bedroom, as well as in the form of the pool on the rear terrace. He also likened the basement space to the form of the 'family house' built by the Dogon tribes of Mali, in which every function has its place.”

The Housdens first occupied the uncompleted house late in 1964, with their three daughters, a stand pipe in the kitchen and a temporary lavatory. Mrs Housden recalled how the builders took pity on her and set to erecting the kitchen sinks. The house was structurally complete a year or two later, but much of its embellishment was completed over a number of years as funds allowed.