Think of London streets and you think of its townhouses. The grand architecture of Holland Park’s Royal Crescent, the elegant stucco sweep of John Nash’s houses in Marylebone and Mayfair, Thomas Cubitt’s divine designs on Bloomsbury’s Gordon Square and Belgravia’s Eaton Square, and the pastel-coloured residences of Chelsea and Notting Hill, so beloved of visiting Instagrammers.
As the fashion for widescreen, lateral living prevails across new developments all over town, London’s Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian townhouses, says architect Glenn Howells, remain an exercise in modern familial accommodation, delivering multi-level floor space, privacy and community, a threshold, front door and a couple of neighbours, in a handsomely boxy, vertically rendered, rigorously civilised stack.
Now Howells’ practice, based in Birmingham and London, has reimagined the classic townhouse in a row of seven…
