Reimagining Terrace House Living - Kunstkammer by Atelier Wagner Architects

This is felt throughout the Kunstkammer residence, which as a terrace house offered only a modest footprint in which to work. Atelier Wagner structured the design as two volumes to the front and back of the site, with a central courtyard that brings light deep within the space. “We’ve tackled the most pressing problem of any terrace house – how to get daylight into it – and how to actually make it feel like a series of spaces that are actually engaging with outside”, reflects David Wagner.

The design of the kitchen and bathrooms was key to ensuring the architects could fit everything required into the terrace house efficiently without sacrificing functionality or amenity. “We’re quite proud of the fact that we’ve got so much into the property, that’s probably the underlying theme of the project”, says David. “By necessity, it required some really rigorous thinking, and our client was very, very interested in every single detail”, Jacqueline adds.

“The client was very familiar with Valcucine, he has a particular love of designer fixtures and fittings and European design,” says Rogerseller Kitchen Designer Michelle Stirling. The terrace typology informed the kitchen design – “we had to be very clever with storage solutions”, Michelle explains. The Valcucine New Logica system from Rogerseller conceals the kitchen, and “the capacity to have something that was much more than first appears is beautifully in line with the design of the house”, David says.

Jacqueline describes it as a surprising ‘magic box’ that “when you open it up, it comes alive”. This description captures the idea of the ‘kunstkammer’ or ‘cabinet of curiosities’, a term that refers to notable collections of objects developed from the sixteenth-century onwards in Europe. This combination of joy and functionality is the result of a high degree of refinement in the design, which is felt too in the architecture of the Kunstkammer residence.