Clerkenwell Green
London EC1
£1,950,000 Freehold

Introduction
Accommodation and images
History
Download floorplan (pdf)

Richard Paxton was born in 1956. Having studied architecture at Kingston University, he went to work in the offices of Ahrends, Burton & Koralek, where he was involved in the design of the Cummins Diesel Factory in Scotland and the Sainsbury’s supermarket in Canterbury. In 1985 he established his own practice with his future wife, Heidi Locher, who had formerly worked for Terence Conran.

Paxton Locher have been responsible for the design of the Soho Theatre and the Jerwood Space in Southwark, but perhaps their most significant contribution to architecture has been the imaginative domestic projects they have undertaken both for themselves and for distinguished clients (including Douglas Adams and Griff Rhys Jones). Notable among these is a wonderful penthouse apartment in Highbury with an internal swimming pool and vast reception room.

The site at Clerkenwell Green had been considered by the Jerwood Foundation for its proposed development of an arts venue, but it proved too small for the purpose. Richard Paxton and Heidi Locher acquired it for themselves, and set about creating a mixed-use scheme that included office space for their practice, apartments for sale, and of course their own private residence at the rear.

The house won a host of admirers. According to Kenneth Powell in The Independent, it demonstrated Paxton’s “remarkable expertise at working within constrained urban sites”. It was described by the Architects’ Journal as “a small piece of California… come to London”. And, more recently, Kevin McCloud wrote an article in Grand Designs in which he referred to it as “the perfect house”. McCloud enthused: “…above all else, what impresses me is how Richard understood the idea of enclosure. For him walls didn’t exist to support the roof but to provide shelter and comfort. He knew how to articulate the shapes in a building to make you feel relaxed, nurtured and protected so that when, with a flourish, the roof opened, you didn’t cower in he wind but felt instead kissed by a breeze. He understood that great Corbusian truth, that the business of architecture is to create relationships: with a building, with people and with the world at large.”

In 2002, Richard Paxton started work on another house for his family and offices in a Primrose Hill mews. Mirroring the house at Clerkenwell Green, the building was designed to take natural light from above. It also featured a studio for Heidi Locher, who was increasingly focussed on painting rather than architecture. In 2004, their practice was renamed Richard Paxton Architects to reflect Locher’s reduced role. When he died in March 2006, Paxton was working on yet another home for his family and the practice, a low-energy building in Hampstead designed in conjunction with the renowned engineer Max Fordham.
Diagram of the Clerkenwell Green development, with the house on the right