Architecture practice Unknown Works has transformed a dark London townhouse into a connected home within a stepped and terraced landscape.

The clients wanted to refocus their four-storey semi-detached terrace to include an open, fluid living space. Their vision was to create a multi-level playground for their two young children and open the ground floor to create a versatile space for larger gatherings.

The house sits on the slope of a steep North London hill, where the ground previously came up at all sides to meet it, leading to dark and damp subterranean spaces that were in need of repair. The majority of the garden walls and rear of the house required underpinning to create a safe structure.

The team excavated the home out of the hillside to allow light into the lower levels and the sloped garden was re-terraced to allow for a new visual connection to a series of play spaces.

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