David Taylor visits The Cloud House in Gospel Oak and talks to its architect and owner Peter Morris about creating more colourful, humanised buildings, neighbourhood support, arches, inspirations, and appearing on Grand Designs.

Hi Peter! We are standing outside your rather extraordinary house in Gospel Oak in north London. I wondered if you could firstly just describe the project in broad terms? 

 

Yes. So: we bought the land 10 years ago, and on the land was a two-storey Victorian house that was completely empty. This [gestures] was a garden, and so then we looked into doing a project on here and managed to design two new build houses. It was designed around the time when we had our honeymoon in Miami, me and my wife, and that was the biggest inspiration, actually, Miami, with all the Art Deco. Pink flamingos, turquoise sea, and curvy buildings! 

 

You were presumably a colourist, as it were, beforehand; were you interested in colour generally? 

 

Yes, absolutely. I'm not really allowed to do much of that with my clients, and very often I'd get what would be called Peter's Room, and it would be the downstairs toilet, which I could colour pink, or blue or whatever colour. (laughs) Generally, people want something a bit more reserved, unfortunately. 

 

So where does that come from, your interest in colour? 

 

Well, it's developed for a long time, really. I'm a big fan of postmodern architecture, and that sort of ‘80s thing, I guess. I grew up in the 80s... 

 

People like FAT? 

 

Yes, I was taught by FAT at the Royal College of Art, so they were a big influence on me. Colourful, playful, joyful buildings. That's what I like to do, and it's kind of why we did this place. It's a bit of a calling card to show people what I can do, and what I like to do. 

 

Has it resulted in any new business for you as a practice, as an architect? 

 

No new business yet! (laughs). No, I know, we've had so much publicity, and I guess architecture is a funny thing. It's not like buying a coat or something. Like, “oh yeah, immediately I'm going to buy that coat”. There were lots of people saving a lot of the social media, and I think that is because they're thinking, 'oh, in a year's time, or six months' time, when I buy my house, when I find the right house, when I find the right plot of land, I'll get Peter to do me one of his designs.' It doesn't really happen just straight away, unfortunately. 

 

We should say that this was on Grand Designs fairly recently, about a month ago… 

 

Yes! So, 1 million people-plus will have seen it now on television, which is amazing publicity for me and what I can do. 

 

How was it as a process, in terms of being filmed? Your partner is a film producer, I think? 

 

Yes, she's a TV producer, so she was really good to tell me what was involved, and it was brilliant, actually. The team on Grand Designs were really great. Kevin McCloud was really, really interesting. A really interesting person. He's got so much cultural knowledge, and he's such a good presenter and communicator. You can see why he's been doing it for nearly 30 years now. He's very impressive. Obviously, they will have some scripts, but you know, a lot of it he makes up himself, and he's very, very impressive. 

 

So: the particular pink, how did you arrive at this particular hue? 

 

Well, before we met, Emily had been doing projects by herself, like doing up a flat and things like that, and then living in it and selling it after a few years. She always used a particular pale pink for the floors. So, when we did this project together, I knew that something would have to be pink, and I said, rather than the floors, why don't we do the outside of the building? And then that sparked hours and hours and hours and hours of discussion about which pink (laughs). 

I did some sculptures in Holland Park for Kensington and Chelsea Art Week, and partly I did that as a little mini version of the Cloud House, and partly it was to see what it would look like in the daylight. It was south facing on one side, and that just whited the pink out, and so we actually upped the pink from what we originally had in mind, which is a very pale pink, to something a bit stronger because I didn't want it to look white with the sun on it. That's how we sort of found it. There were certain pinks we didn't like that had too much yellow in there. Honestly, the amount of discussion and hours we've spent on which pink and which turquoise, and which blue, and which green, you know; there's many, many hours spent on it! Also, when I was doing the painting, you do a certain amount of painting on the space; I would do the column or do the backdrop, and then that would then help you decide on the other colours. I did a big colour swatch, too. I did all the colours so we could match it up, and it takes a lot of time. I'm a big fan of yellow, but the one we tried was just too mustardy, and so this yellow is kind of my perfect yellow, which is an IKEA door handle. That sort of lemony sort of yellow. Yes, many, many hours of discussion! 

 

Let's carry on through the house, shall we? 

 

Yes. So, the kitchen features an island, and we designed it with film shoots in mind. The camera would be over there, for what is called Chop and Chat. If you're doing a cooking show, Jamie Oliver's here, chopping, chopping away. Pucker! Look at this lovely grub! (laughs) And the cameras are filming them… 

 

So, you did it with a view to hiring out the space? 

 

Yes, absolutely. And also positioning the hob was quite important, so that you could then cook and be filmed. But also, when we got friends over and we're making a meal, they can sit one side, and it's quite sociable, because the worst thing is facing the other side too much. Because you're just looking at a wall, a quite a pretty wall, but... 

 

Very pretty! 

 

...but just a wall. Then we've got a dining table and our living room. I've had the shelves for ages and ages, and we love collecting lots of things that we find, like little eggs and drawing on them. It's like a museum of Peter and Emily, really! So, we just like having those things on display. Then the wardrobes here are IKEA on the back, but then on for the doors that's Plykea. So again, just very economical. 

 

Sure. 

 

There is a nice lightwell, which ideally, I'd like to turn into a sort of herb garden. At the minute, it's hiding some of the paint pots that are still left. And then there are three roof lights which are really wonderful; loads of light in, and the light changes throughout the day. It's really lovely, and you can get nice glimpses of the building from funny angles, which I quite like. 

Every room has a MVHR system, which is a mechanical heat ventilation recovery unit, and that brings in a lot of fresh air to every space. We've got an air source heat pump which does the heating, and that's in every floor, so underfloor heating. I made a canopy, a bit like when you're in an ice cream shop or something like that, or an ice cream parlour, and there are some plaster balls - there are apparently some in the John Soane Museum. They are usually made for old Edwardian houses, but we found it and we love them. The the lights are also a ball and that relates to those circular windows on the outside; so, it's all following the same sort of theme. Because there's loads of arches on the outside, I wanted to continue the arches internally as well, but you couldn't always do it structurally because of the cost or because the space wouldn't allow it. So, I've painted arches onto some normal doors. And then the door to my office also is an arch. I quite like playful sorts of things. 

 

Essentially, is this the ‘cloud’ of the building’s name? 

 

This is now the cloud, yes. On the stairs, we put the lights low down below the handrails so that we can put loads of art above that. On my daughter's floor, which sounds very extravagant, what I quite liked was that we were able to create arches within the walls, and then you've got pocket doors that close the space. What I quite like is you've got a window, and an arch, another arch, and then another arch, and they're all lining up, which is quite nice. And then little arches in the wall wherever possible. We're just getting arches in, or curves in, or circles. 

 

Do you like ‘The Archers’? (laughs) 

 

(laughs) Emily does, actually! She did a programme about it years ago, and then she got hooked! 

So, on our floor, we've got a much higher ceiling here because above the roof we've got loads of solar panels. It’s got a much bigger height than my daughter's got, and we have roll-up blinds - it's a bedroom, so you want a bit of privacy, but also, you want the daylight and the view. So, if you had a roller coming traditionally down, by the time you've got all the privacy, you've lost all the daylight and the view. So, they actually just work in the opposite way, where they roll up.  And then, my favourite space is on the roof. In the summer, it was so nice. We'd bring up a bottle of wine and some nibbles, put a bit of cold water in the bath, and - absolutely lovely. 

 

How were the planners in this whole experience? 

 

It took five years, which was really annoying, but the process was a positive one. We worked with them on a pre-app. 

 

This was Camden, presumably? 

 

Yes, Camden, and it went through three iterations of the design. I think the final design is better than the first design. So, it was a good process, but I wished it had taken one year rather than five years, really. 

 

And what was their attitude to the colour side of things? 

 

What was interesting is the final meeting we had in our old house, which was on the site, and we had to decorate that and do some work to it. We had all our colourful furniture in there. We decorated all the walls, and it was all very colourful. And they came round to the house, and after the meeting, they said, 'We're going to give you the approval, and it's because we can see your personality in the design. We get it now; it's your personality'. What they meant by that was that 'you're not a developer, and you're going to be passionate about it, and you're not going to be somebody who cuts corners'. Because I think if you do a design like this, you just have to see it through, because when you construct things, there's so many consultants and people involved in it who could mess up your building, and we resisted that. I think it shows that on Grand Designs where I'm quite pernickety about stuff and get my tape measure out. 

 

The original builder? 

 

Yes, so you know I really resisted... 

 

Cutting corners? 

 

Yes, literally cutting corners. 

 

Literally! (laughs) 

 

Yes (laughs). One of the nicest details is where the two arches come together, and then you get a sort of line between them. And if you get that wrong, if one arch is bigger than the other arch, it won't be symmetrical. It won't look nice. 

 

What about your neighbours? What has their response been to all of this? 

 

Before we did the planning application, we took round the drawings to all of the neighbours and showed them what we were putting up, if they weren't available at the time, we then did a meeting in the church where we had all the drawings out and a model, and everybody - people either said, "Well, I don't like it, but I'm not going to resist it”, or people said they loved it. Generally, people said it was better than what was here before because it was a really low, weird, damp building. So, generally, the neighbours have been really positive, and even some neighbours wrote in letters to the council to say this must happen, this is a really good thing. This will be better than what we've currently got. And they did that by themselves, which was very sweet. 

 

At the end of the Grand Designs, you were quite emotional. Understandably, because it was a long haul, more than anything else. It's presumably a lifetime home for you. Is this where you're sticking? 

 

We hope so. We're broke! (laughs) I guess with every Grand Designs episode, very often you don't have any money left. 

 

Yes. 

 

So, it depends if we can both get work. The economy's not good, and we are literally broke. So, ideally, we want to stay here, but we might have to sell it. 

 

Well, that would be a shame. 

 

It would, because we've put our heart and souls into it, and, I mean, it would mean we'd do another project, maybe. 

 

Have you got something in mind? 

 

No, we’re just really trying to get new work, both of us, we've literally got to the end of the year, really. 

 

Well, good luck with that. 

 

Yeah, thank you. 

 

Wonderful, and it's nice to see such joy in in buildings, as Kevin McCloud intimated at the end of Grand Designs. Presumably, you are on board with the general Thomas Heatherwick movement about avoiding bland buildings as well, are you? In terms of there needs to be more embracing of colour in our buildings? 

 

Yes, and the humanising of buildings. I'm a big fan of what he says. Yes, there's a responsibility as an architect, a responsibility to design, to give something to the street, and I took that very seriously. We've got an interior which is really joyful, but I wanted to give an exterior that is really joyful. Literally everybody that walks by – and I meet probably about 10 people a day still now, two months after the show, and they generally all say it really makes me smile, and it's such a wonderful thing. 

 

And it makes you smile too. 

 

Yes, and everybody says: why aren't there more buildings like this? I totally agree with them. I'm really pleased that Camden Planning Department supported us, and I think there should be more support for more buildings like this. 

 

Thanks for showing me around. 

 

No problem. Thank you!