Modernist mews.A diminutive di·min·u·tive adj. 1. Extremely small in size; tiny. See Synonyms at small. 2. Grammar Of or being a suffix that indicates smallness or, by semantic extension, qualities such as youth, familiarity, affection, or mews house in London built in the 1970s has been enlarged, transformed with elegance and a great deal of ingenuity. An ingenious scheme, by Ziggurat ziggurat (zĭg`  răt), form of temple common to the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians. The earliest examples date from the end of the 3d millenium B.C. , for extending a tiny mews house in South Kensington Coordinates: South Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London. It is a built-up area located 2.4 miles (3.9 km) west south-west of Charing Cross. , enlarges the vertical dimension and uses light to draw out the horizontal. The original house was built as one of a pair in the 1970s, on derelict derelict n. something or someone who is abandoned, such as a ship left to drift at sea or a homeless person ignored by family and society. (See: abandon, dereliction) DERELICT, common law. land. Stuccoed externally to accord with its Victorian neighbours, the house was one storey high with four rooms and very little natural light. The front of the building, with bedroom, bathroom, entrance lobby and hall, was retained with some remodelling; the remainder of the building was virtually demolished. Behind the existing remnant, Ziggurat excavated and lowered the floor level several feet, and created a double-height volume with a roof that curves away from the street, so that externally the building seems unchanged. A glass wall marks division between the house and a tiny courtyard, painted white to become an exterior room diffusing luminance The amount of brightness, measured in lumens, that is given off by a pixel or area on a screen. For example, dark red and bright red would have the same chrominance, but a different luminance. back into the house. Ziggurat has cleverly established a shifting diagonal axis through the plan, from the entrance and hall on the south-west side of the building to the radiant white courtyard. The progression through the house is one from dimness to bright light, from enclosed space Noun 1. enclosed space - space that is surrounded by something cavity space - an empty area (usually bounded in some way between things); "the architect left space in front of the building"; "they stopped at an open space in the jungle"; "the space between to its sudden dramatic expansion and colour. At the front of the new volume, the architects installed a gallery containing sleeping quarters. The bedroom is partly enclosed by a cut-out wall, painted mint green, and looks onto a double-height dining room set under the reflective curve of the new roof. Beneath the gallery is a living room and small kitchen; and fitted under the stairs to the bedroom is a curved desk forming a tiny study. To have inserted so much drama and delight into such a small space is an achievement, and the scheme has been executed with a great deal of elegance. Materials are simple -- painted walls and a beech floor flowing into concrete as it approaches the courtyard -- and the composition, which has the clarity of an early Modernist work, is sharpened by use of colour here and there. Details are constantly intriguing: the dining table that is part of a sliding door to the courtyard, the sinuous sinuous /sin·u·ous/ (sin´u-us) bending in and out; winding. sinuous bending in and out; winding. concrete bench, like a piece of sculpture, lining and seeming part of the courtyard wall, and the rotating door to the kitchen, which s imultaneously turns out to be a cupboard. Architect Ziggurat, London Project architects Andrel Bowbelaki, James Oavis with Laurence Guerrini, Areti Theofanopoulou Structural engineers Whitby Bird and Partners -- Special Projects Photographs James Morris There have been several people named James Morris:
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