Vaulting Loft began with a valley between two parallel roof ridges on a detached Victorian house in Hampstead, London, United Kingdom. MATA Architects infilled that valley with a new flat roof, gaining enough height over the top-floor flat to turn two bedrooms into three and add a mezzanine. The flat is the London base for a family who lives abroad and visits for stretches of a few days to a few weeks.

Construction began in September 2023 with the full demolition of the original roof. Replacing it outright let the studio leave the new structure exposed, push the ceiling as high as possible, and substantially improve the roof’s thermal performance.

The section is deliberately uneven. Over the living, dining, and kitchen areas, white-painted rafters climb toward the rooflights at full double height. Toward the eaves the pitched planes drop low, so a chair placed against the slope or a desk set under it sits at ordinary domestic height. Moving through the plan means passing in and out of these two conditions.

Below the mezzanine, the studio treated the remaining volume as a single block of oak and cut circulation out of its mass. The hallway to the three bedrooms, the storage, and a guest WC are all carved from it, with oak lining the surfaces inside and out. A winding stair finished in the same timber rises through the block, so the shift from the white main room into the passage is a shift from painted plaster to continuous wood grain.

Dinesen Douglas fir boards run across the floor. The species is a softwood that dents under use and slowly deepens toward amber in daylight, which keeps it in tone with the oak as both age. In the kitchen by Hacker, Taj Mahal quartzite from Stonemasters wraps the counters, island, and splashback, a stone harder than marble and far less prone to etching from acidic food. The bathrooms pair concrete sinks and microcement by Nedev with brushed stainless steel fittings from Lusso Stone, a finish that hides water marks better than polished metal. Browned brass pendants by Anour and fixtures by FLOS light the rooms.