Canonbury Square

Glass Garden Room with bespoke oversized mirror doors

This period home in North of London wanted to make the best of its relatively small garden. Working with the space they had, the architect and homeowner designed a bespoke steel box with oversized bespoke mirror doors which acts as a garden room and garage workshop for the their vintage Porsche.  

The steel box was fitted with highly reflective glass panels to create oversized mirror doors to the external surface. This bespoke oversized mirror door was designed to reflect the surrounding garden to allow the garden room to become invisible upon first glance. Reflective glazing is often used for privacy reasons, creating a unique facade that allows you to look outside while ensuring anyone outside cannot see in. 

Credit

Paolo Cossu Architects

Location

North London

The steel box features two entrance options, one being a small casement door on the left side of the building that follows the concrete path taking you from steel box to the home. The second entrance option is actually hidden behind the reflective facade. The facade can be opened like a standard hinged door for a huge opening that allows for a full view into the box. 

 

 

When the outside light level is higher than the interior light level, visual seclusion can be established through the oversized mirror glass. From the outside, this disparity in light gives the glass doors a reflected, mirrored look, yet on the inside, it is transparent.

These kinds of reflective glass coatings have historically been applied to commercial buildings as a simple and efficient method of limiting the amount of solar gain that enters the structure and lowering cooling expenses.

For this project, the reflective coating on the oversized mirror doors was used for two main reasons. One being that the small garden would have felt even smaller with traditional glazing systems installed as they would be fully visible, the reflective glazing creates the illusion that the garden carries on beyond the steel box extension. The second reason was to fully protect the vintage Porsche from any solar damage as older cars are susceptible to paint damage from extreme sunlight. 

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