The reception room of a double-fronted Victorian house in East Dulwich is lined with delicate molded paneling, and that framing detail became the organizing device for Framed House, a refurbishment and two-story rear addition by Will Gamble Architects in London, United Kingdom. The studio carried the motif out of the period room and into the new construction at two scales, as vertical fins across the rear facade and as beaded edging on the kitchen joinery.

The fins run up the rear elevation of the addition, which holds an open-plan living area on the ground floor and a new bedroom above. Their repetition sets a steady rhythm across the facade and gives the extension the same proportional logic as the panel frames inside the original house. The profiles themselves are plainly contemporary, so the old and new parts of the building share a geometry without the addition imitating Victorian ornament.

The ground floor is laid with chocolate-brown fumed oak. Fuming darkens the wood through a reaction between ammonia and the tannins in the oak, so the color penetrates the fiber and holds up to wear and refinishing in a way a surface stain does not. Calacatta Symphony marble picks up the same tone through its brown veining, and bronze details add a metal that darkens and softens with handling over time.

The beading on the kitchen cabinetry runs around each door and drawer front, a smaller and more deliberate version of the reception room frames. For the clients, a young family with a dog named Millie, the architects added a desk area that closes behind pocket doors when the working day ends. A green velvet banquette lines the dining area and faces a new terrace overlooking silver birch trees and an open lawn.

Upstairs, the first floor holds a guest bedroom and a main ensuite, with joinery built around a window seat. In the bathroom, soft, calm materials are paired with microcement, a thin cement-based coating that can be troweled continuously across floors and walls. Without grout lines or tile joints to seal, the room can be detailed and used as a wet room.