Gallery House, Stoke Newington

Gallery House, Stoke Newington

Gallery House is a warm, characterful reimagining of a Victorian terrace in Stoke Newington, designed as a multigenerational home for Neil Dusheiko’s father‑in‑law and his extensive art and ceramics collection. The project turns a once ordinary house into a layered domestic gallery, where everyday life unfolds against walls of books, objects and light.​

The existing house sat on a leafy street overlooking a small park, with a typical arrangement of separated reception rooms and a cramped, poorly connected kitchen at the rear. Despite its generous proportions, the interior felt dark and disconnected from the garden and from the views of greenery beyond.​

The client wanted a place to grow older well: a comfortable, accessible home that could hold a lifetime of paintings, ceramics and glassware without feeling like a storage space. The brief asked for stronger connections between living spaces, better daylight, and a kitchen that would act as social heart and display space for the collection.​

The ground floor was completely reworked into a flowing sequence of living, kitchen and dining spaces, linked by subtle level changes that choreograph how you move through the house. A new white, faceted rear extension appears to float above the garden on a single column, while a continuous run of joinery and oak shelving threads through the plan to frame art, books and objects.​

Skylights cut deep into the roof and angled reveals pull daylight into the centre of the home, turning the kitchen into a light well between street and garden. A calm, limited material palette—timber, polished concrete, lava stone and warm cedar—keeps the backdrop quiet so the client’s collection can sing.​

What was once a conventional terrace is now a deeply personal gallery‑home, where every surface invites touch and every view is curated without feeling precious. The reconfigured levels make the kitchen a fulcrum between an elevated living room and a garden‑level dining space, allowing family gatherings and quiet mornings to occupy the house in different ways through the day.​

The project has been widely published and recognised for demonstrating how modest structural moves and crafted joinery can transform a familiar Victorian typology into a generous, art‑filled environment for later life.​

• Floating white rear extension supported by a single exposed column, framing views to the garden.​

• Tall, oak‑framed shelving and rafters creating a continuous display framework for ceramics, glassware and books.​

• Sequence of level changes linking street, living room, kitchen and garden in one flowing space.​

• Robust, tactile materials including walnut parquet, lava stone worktops and polished concrete floors.​

• Longlisted and shortlisted in major London retrofit and design awards.