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2c Belsize Park Gardens for Robin Webster; Renovations

Architect: Spence, Michael Robin · 1938-2017Architect: Webster, Robin, OBE RSA · b. 1939

2c Belsize Park Gardens for Robin Webster; Renovations

With the prize money awarded to Spence and Webster for their winning design for the new Parliamentary Office Building at Westminster in 1972, Robin…

With the prize money awarded to Spence and Webster for their winning design for the new Parliamentary Office Building at Westminster in 1972, Robin Spence and Robin Webster purchased a plot of vacant land at Belsize Park Gardens in London on which they designed and built a pair of matching steel-framed, flat-roofed, glass-walled residences set low to minimise their visual impact and with the heating plant contained in a basement level, the houses separated by a shared central courtyard and in which the pair lived and conducted their practice as Spence and Webster.

This pair of identical single-storey steel frame houses were designed by Spence and Webster for themselves and completed in 1981. The initial design was for two C-shaped houses, back to back. The final design consists of two C-shaped houses facing each other, with an open courtyard in the centre. On the occasion of the 'Steel Houses' exhibition at the Heinz Gallery (7 Sep - 4 Nov 1995) the architects presented 81 drawings relating to this project covering the dates 1975-80 to RIBA (ref RAN 76/E/1 (1-81).

The properties were designed and built between 1978 and 1981. They were featured in the article ' Another double for the twin motorcyclists [a pair of twin houses for Robin Spence and Robin Webster]' which appeared in the journal London Architect, August 1981, p.15. https://riba.sirsidynix.net.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/?ps=KUBHtwMtFE/MAIN_CAT/X/9.

The houses were previewed in 1978; 'Two single storey houses, Belsize Park, London' in Architectural Review, vol. 163, no. 971, 1978 Jan, p. 26. https://riba.sirsidynix.net.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/?ps=edexjg46m2/MAIN_CAT/X/9

In 2010 an unsuccessful attempt was made to have them listed when they were threatened by a local redevelopment, but were saved when planning permission for the redevelopment was refused. Robin Webster wrote an article on this in Building Design Journal, no. 1958, 2011 Mar. 25, p. 5.
https://riba.sirsidynix.net.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/?ps=4d14ghwjF3/MAIN_CAT/X/9

A series of eight black and white photographs of aspects the completed property taken in 1982 by photographer John Donat (1933-2004) are held by the Royal Incorporation of British Architects and accessible online; Vide https://www.ribapix.com/Architects-homes-2c-and-2d-Belsize-Park-Gardens-London-the-courtyard-between-the-two-houses_RIBA77146
(et seq.)

See the Production Note above