London architects Liddicoat & Goldhill have completed a glazed addition to a 17th Century house in north London.

Called the Weather Room, the new element unites two wings of the house and opens onto gardens.

Adhesive LED tape, a low-energy lighting system, is housed within the structural steel frame.

Photographs are by Keith Collie.

Here's some more information from Liddicoat & Goldhill:

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The Weather room

White Lodge is a Grade II-listed house in Monken Hadley, North London. The oldest parts date to the 17th Century, and inchoate additions and alterations have taken place periodically ever since.

The Weather Room is the latest layer added to this historic building. The brief was to reunite disconnected wings of the house and open the building to its extensive gardens.

The form of the new space was dictated by the strictures of working on a listed building in a very tightly controlled Conservation Area.

The detail of the construction became the focus, and a close working relationship developed between the architect, the contractor, the engineer and the steelwork contractor. Much time was spent at the steelwork contractor’s workshop, where each component and connection was drawn, prototyped and refined.

The structure of the room is simple; powder-coated steel glazing bars form a portal frame which supports the structural double-glazing over. Steel was chosen to allow very fine (45mm) sight lines through to the garden, while still being capable of bearing people and scaffolding on the roof to allow maintenance of the windows and roofs above.

The glazing bars were hand-made by welding a ‘sandwich’ of bright steel flats together.

A narrow rebate was created to the inside of the bars, allowing installation of an adhesive LED light tape. This highly-efficient, low- energy lighting system solved the conundrum of providing even, atmospheric light in a space with a glazed ceiling without obtrusive luminaries. The resultant effect is of warm ribbons of light glowing from the sharp edge of the steel.

The interior is tempered by the external condition; the structure plays a crucial role in this relationship.

By day, it animates the space through the play of light and shadow from the glass and steel flats. As night falls, concealed blades of light within the steel succeed the sun and the space develops an entirely different character.

Structural Engineer : Lyons O'Neill
Photographer : Keith Collie