design et al are delighted to announce that Staffan Tollgard Design Group have been shortlisted for Interior Design Scheme – UK Award within The International Design and Architecture Awards 2017.
A thoughtful, elegant yet playful family home that captures the essence of Notting Hill life in a sleek architectural nutshell. The heart of Notting Hill is at once traditional and iconoclastic, home to the established and the irreverent. Important, imposing homes stand side-by-side with pastel-painted mews houses, the mix creating an exuberant, energetic melting pot representative of London living at its best. This impressive home on one of Notting Hill’s most beautiful communal gardens was designed to capture these contrasting elements as family developers Thornsett together with Capital Architects and interior designers Staffan Tollgard brought this already handsome home into the 21st century. 
In architectural terms the house was sensitively extended with a new basement adding to its already generous footprint. Lead designer Ariadna Hernando and her team carved out a modern, family home over five floors, giving each its own visual and functional identity linked through a clean architectural palette. The brief from the development team was to create a liveable family home with the appropriate gravitas and formality in some of the key entertaining spaces, with all the creature comforts of modern living carefully concealed. Thus, on the ground floor the scene is set with the palette of dark herringbone floors, bespoke joinery, and dramatic sculptural pendants. On the family floor below, though, the atmosphere is lighter and more tropical as the open-plan kitchen, dining and living room extend out into the private garden space beyond. One floor lower and the cinema and wine room create intimate and cosy entertaining spaces. The top three floors contain a luxurious master suite and four further ensuite bedrooms. Important architectural features such as the decorative cornice and existing stained-glass windows have been maintained, creating a dialogue between old and new that adds energy and interest to the journey through the house.
Staffan Tollgard Design Group are great believers in honest luxury. This home uses solid, valuable materials in a clean, architectural, and truthful way – and the outcome is refreshingly authentic. The house is as open as we could make it, (without breaking out in the neighbouring houses.) The spaces are well-thought through, with a clear sense of the family that would need to live and move through them. There is a lot of storage… something the designers have learnt you can never have too much of. There is drama in the rooms that demand it – the beautiful Fiori di Bosco marble in the master bathroom making a bold statement against the clean lines of the bath and basins. This dialogue is reflected and repeated in the cloakroom on the lower ground floor but in a smaller space – the repetition of materials with variation one of the red threads that run though the house. Notting Hill has a definite story to tell. The families that choose to live here are committing to its energy, creativity and connection with garden spaces. Staffan Tollgard Design Group’s design speaks to this vision and offers luxurious, resilient family living with all of the luxuries and modern conveniences they crave but do not necessarily want to see.
