The site for the Ott’s Yard houses contained a derelict workshop, with no less than 23 party walls. Two of the founder members of architecture practice vPPR – Cambridge graduates Tatiana von Preussen and Catherine Pease – acquired it at auction in 2009 and set about creating a pair of houses for their own use. The project was vPPR’s first major new-build project, and helped to generate significant attention for the practice.

Work began on the project in February 2012 and reached completion in August 2013. The dwellings were constructed using a timber frame, with plywood panels and steel to support the rooflights. The materials used on the project were chosen to reflect a Victorian palette, with brickwork and greenery to the exterior and white-painted walls to the interior.

The architecture critic Rowan Moore wrote about Ott’s Yard in The Observer:

“The project is hard at the centre and soft at the edges, changing from brick and the triangular geometry derived from the shape of the site, to lush planting. It is also, says von Preussen, a ‘good place for entertaining’, which highlights vPPR's recurring interest in social spaces. The kitchens and a shared court are seen as such, and the project was inaugurated with exhibitions and parties in the old timber yard on which it would be built.”

In an interview with Wallpaper magazine, Tatiana von Preussen said:

“The triangular geometry of the site created the plans of the houses and their two gardens. By subdividing it into smaller triangles, we created this pinwheel fractal pattern, which gets repeated on every scale – even the tiling, the planters and the skylights. The landscape was also a central driver.”

Prior to co-founding vPPR, Tatiana von Preussen worked for landscape-design practice Field Operations on the High Line park in New York; Jessica Reynolds worked at Front, a façade design practice; and Catherine Pease worked at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill on Mumbai airport.