2023 In Review
As the year draws to a close, we wanted to take a moment to express our gratitude to everyone who has worked with us and who has followed our work this year. And what a great year it has been!
We pride ourselves on creating joyful, and colourful homes, designed for living. So, what better way to revisit this past year than by looking at some of the joyful and colourful homes that we have shared with you this year.
The Judd
‘we were looking for somebody to work with that was exciting, that was able to create something special out of something ordinary’ Patricia
2023 was the year we shared The Judd, a bold and vibrant transformation of a Victorian terrace into a low energy home designed for Patricia and Gwen. The project was recognised at the British Homes Awards as the Best Interior design of the year and got the honour of gracing the front cover of Grand Designs magazine. If you missed it, there is a great interview with Patricia and Gwen on our website where they share their experience of developing the project and living in their new home.
https://b-vds.co.uk/the-judd-client-interview/
Mazarine
‘BVDS brought a refreshing perspective by simply looking at the possibilities, which is a rarity, they encouraged us to explore ‘what if’ scenarios, opening up a world of creative potential’ Sreeja
We also completed our latest project, Mazarine, this year and enjoyed sharing the photos with our followers. Designed for Gautham, Sreeja and their family, Mazarine is the combination of two apartments to create one beautiful duplex home in Belsize Park. The warm colours of the interiors were perfect for Elle Decoration’s winter issue and we also had the opportunity to interview Gautham and Sreeja and share their insights with you.
https://b-vds.co.uk/client-interview-belsize-park/
George’s House
‘I wanted to use a really good architect, but they were all busy, so I did it myself’ George
People often ask us what we would do with our homes and this year it was great to be able to share the experience from our side. We took a tour of George’s family home, as he shared his ideas and tips. Judging by the response to that month’s newsletter, our followers are a nosey bunch, and quite right. If we bang the drum with our clients about making homes colourful and joyful, then we must be able to show that we do it with our own homes too!
Explore Georges house by clicking here.
New Videos
We collaborated with the talented Khizr Studio this year to commission three films featuring our projects and interviews with the occupants. The first one was released over the summer with a great response. We loved how the video showed a very different and more immersive perspective on Hawthorn House. We wish that we could invite everybody to come and visit our projects, but as they are private homes, that can be quite tricky. We feel videos are the next best thing and we look forward to sharing the videos of The Judd and Tonal Terrace with you in the new year.
Design Workshops
After the success of last years Winter Workshops, in aid of a raising funds for Crisis, we relaunched the event this year as a summer workshop, which again sold out and this time raised money for Shelter. We have really enjoyed doing these sessions and they have proved popular and a great way of raising money for charity, so they will be featuring as a regular event going forwards. The latest, launched last week, sold out within minutes, and has raised enough money to pay for 20 homeless people to have somewhere safe to stay this Christmas and have access to support, health care and much more, so a big thank you to everyone who booked!
Another Architecture Podcast
The 2023 season of Another Architecture Podcast had record breaking listeners for the new episodes published. It will be back for a new season in the new year with some exciting new houses from around the world featuring. The podcast always welcomes suggestions for future guests, so please let us know if there is a dream home of yours that you would like featured.
On Going Research
As well as sharing with you pictures of the homes that we design, we love going into more depth and sharing the thought and research that goes into developing them. This year we published a few new articles on our blog page and one of the highlights was the Deep Retrofit Success Story, in which we shared our post occupancy energy use analysis of The Judd. We are really passionate about designing homes for comfort and to use less energy to heat them. We believe this is about taking a holistic and measurable approach but, being honest with you, we were stunned by the results on The Judd, so we are going to be doubling down on our Deep Retrofit messaging next year.
https://b-vds.co.uk/energy-efficient-home/
There are so many exciting new projects in development or projects recently completed and waiting to be shared with you; a beautifully transformed townhouse in Dalston, an exciting home in Bristol, a large modernist apartment in Islington, a chef’s home in Chalk Farm and a beautiful family home near Hampstead Heath to name but a few. We look forward to sharing them with you!
Thank You!
Thank you to all of you for supporting us, whether you have worked with us as part of our wider consultancy team, are spending Christmas in a home designed by us, or just enjoy following our work on Instagram, the Bradley Van Der Straeten family means a lot to us.
While each of us at BVDS take a break and spend time with our families in Italy, Belgium, Australia, Ireland and Bulgaria, we hope you all have an exciting, restful and wonderful break too, and look forward to catching up in the new year.
George, Ewald, Jessica, Stephen and Vladimir