The Wee House occupies a narrow triangular shaped plot; an infill between two larger blocks. The street façade is only 2.5 metres wide, reducing to point at the rear. The ground floor had been used as a shop before being converted for residential use. The tiny existing kitchen occupied a room (or cupboard) of less than 2.5m², yet the bathroom took up the entire basement. A small area of roof over the kitchen at 1st floor level formed an unusable rear ‘terrace’.

The works were driven by an ambition to make this wee house a truly functional home for the client and his partner, to maximise the space without any aspect ever feeling awkward or contrived. The internal layout was comprehensively rationalised and extended to use every square centimetre of the plot.

The final solution provides a regular sized and kitted out kitchen, an atmospheric master bedroom with adequate clothes storage and guest room. The extra floor delivered break-away space in the form of the top floor glass-roofed den.

The infill of the small rear area over four floors created two ‘wet rooms’, a library space and a hard working plant/utility room. Whilst also providing a vertical services shaft serving all floors.

A distinctive new ‘shop front’ was created using deep blocks of pre-cast concrete, with subtle shifts in the planes of windows and the door enhancing depth. A low-level window beneath the kitchen worktop provides additional daylight to the basement bedroom.