The sun is always shining in architect Josh Piddock’s apartment in London’s Hackney. That’s thanks to the kitchen mural, a simple but game-changing circle, that Josh planted in the heart of his carefully orchestrated flat.
When the contractor he was waiting for unexpectedly left town, Josh, who heads his own firm, Studio Merlin, orchestrated the remodel himself. He did his share of the scutwork as well, including stripping the kitchen’s 1970s wallpaper. While painting the walls white “as a temporary lift prior to the full refurbishment,” he left a large, round patch of brown plaster bare because he liked the way it added a moon-like presence (scroll below to see it).
As work got underway, Josh decided to turn to the moon into a sun, rendered in a warm yellow clay plaster. The circle serves as a focal point for his quarters, which are in Gibson Gardens, a late-19th century enclave of brick buildings—Josh chose his palette from the colors outside his windows. He also continued with the decorative wall painting: there’s a Mondrian-style pattern adjacent to the sun. Join us for a tour.
Photography by Richard Chivers, courtesy of Studio Merlin (@studiomerlin).
Above: It’s not every day that a designer gets to inject a project with all the personality he pleases. The apartment unfolds around the kitchen (see the floor plan below). Josh says he set out to create “a warm, calm, and artified home.”
Simple white floor tiles form, in Josh’s words, a “soft corridor and and circulation zone leading to the other rooms of the flat,” and the kitchen is set off by terrazzo floor tiles.
Above: The cabinets are composed of Ikea Metod innards with custom fronts of “cut-to-size Moisture Resistant (MR) MDF, with a shop spray finish in colors to match the Farrow & Ball Red Earth and Strong White and used elsewhere in the flat.” The steel cabinet pull bars and knobs are from Buster + Punch, as are the Hooked hanging lights.
Above: The kitchen walls and sun are finished with Smooth Clay Plaster from Clayworks of Cornwall: a 50:50 mix of YEL-06 and TER-08. Josh painted the base layers himself and recruited John Frankland, an artist with clay plaster experience, to do the final: “You basically get one shot at the application as it goes on top of two coats of base color, so it protrudes from the wall,” Josh told The Sunday Times Magazine.
Above: Cabinets frame the entry creating a vestibule and extra storage. The countertops and backsplash are Caesarstone. The faucet is the Lusso Giro—for more ideas, see 10 Easy Pieces: Architects’ Go-To Modern Kitchen Faucets.
Above: A storage niche is tucked alongside the Neff induction cooktop. The red Tip Wall Lamps are a Muuto design.
Above: Josh’s ash Plank Table and Ava chairs are from Ercol. He describes clay plaster as “a natural finish that has nice variation and texture. Applying it feels like smoothing a sandcastle (you add two coats on a primer to get a key), and a glaze is applied afterwards to toughen it up and create durability.” Scroll down for the process shots.
The Granby Workshop terrazzo tiles contain recycled brick and slate from demolished buildings in Liverpool. The exposed steel beams appear in each of the rooms and are painted Farrow & Ball’s Red Earth.
Above: Josh finished the Mondrian-style wall with a framework of painted pine “to match the skirtings, door frames and cupboards.” The clay plaster hues re-create the colors of the building’s Victorian brickwork and the steel finishes reference the cobblestone street. “The interior is defined by earthy tones offset against lighter finishes and neutral understated furniture,” writes Josh.
Above: The ventilated cabinet over the powder room door conceals the Wi-Fi router.
Above: The wall is finished in four shades of Clayworks’ Smooth Clay Plaster: TER-08, OLI-03, OLI-04, WHI-08. The metal radiator is from Column Rads—find similar designs in the US from Hudson Reed.
The Remodel In Progress
Above: The kitchen was last updated in the 1970s. It’s shown here at Phase One with wallpaper removed (including from the exposed beam) and Josh’s plaster moon created by leaving a round patch unpainted.
The apartment was built as workers’ housing: explains Josh, “Gibson Gardens was created by an organization called The Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes.”
Above: Josh used balsa wood from an art supply store to create a template for the Mondrian wall before the clay plaster was applied.
Above: John Frankland hangs a circle template that he dampened slightly to adhere to the wall.
Above: “We did some experiments beforehand on paper, and used a heat gun to accelerate the drying so we could try different mixes,” says Josh.
The Apartment Floor Plan
Above: The kitchen is designed to be the apartment’s centerpoint; the living room, bedroom, and office all open off it.
Here are three more kitchens that architects designed for themselves:
