Once a stables,101 Ashby Mews has spent the last five years as a workshop and storage unit – a 168sq m site housing a single-storey brick building with a corrugated metal roof. The owner, an artist and designer, commissioned Russian for Fish to develop the existing building into a live-work unit spread over two timber-clad structures: a ground-floor workshop and first-floor studio, and a single-storey two-bedroom living space at the rear of the site.
Large glazed doors and windows open onto a courtyard separating the two areas, and roof lights throughout ensure the spaces are bright and welcoming despite a lack of side windows. The project incorporates a green roof and includes solar cells on the pitch roof of the live unit. The black timber cladding pays homage to traditional farm buildings once common in Brockley. The roof and large first floor window are reflections of 93 Ashby Mews – the road’s other former-stable building.