The competition brief called for proposals to re-imagine an existing Mews House situated in Fitzrovia, Central London. 

In 'Small Pleasures of Life' * Alison and Peter Smithson sketch an outline of how plain use can become a true pleasure. They describe the places where residents can take possession of the house and explain how the house as a whole is enriched by the subtle definition of these spaces. The proposed pattern of private and living areas, containing a series of these 'small pleasures', is organised vertically around 'an inhabited staircase', which brings light deep into the land-locked plan at all levels, from third floor living areas/terrace to subterranean media/guest room. 

Furthermore, the inverted arrangement of upper floor living spaces and ground/first bedrooms, creates well lit top floor living quarters, capitalising views over surrounding rooftops, and darker/cooler lower floor sleeping quarters.

A strong contextual approach to the building as a whole has been developed, where the use of hand-made bricks and larch timber cladding has been chosen as a consistent building material, to give the proposed mews house a physical solidity and emphasise the built character of its surroundings. 

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* Changing the Art of Inhabitation 
Alison and Peter Smithson; London, Munich: 1994