![]() ![]() ![]() The side of the bath is mirrored, plunging the illustrations into dream-like depths. Positioned against the mushroomy backdrop, the geometric forms include flowers, fruit, a duck and Rupert the cat. Shaw bought samples of coloured tiles to create abstract, Anni Albers-inspired mosaics. Unexpectedly, however, it is the basement bathroom which wins on the charm front. As well as a rotating cast of artworks (the Jochen Holz neon in the hallway was a swap with a friend), Shaw’s own designs – from the baby blue handrail on the staircase to candle holders and his ‘blob’ lamps – are displayed throughout. Living at the house with his partner, a writer – as well as their newborn daughter and cat, Rupert – the question of where to put books was approached by Shaw with utter seriousness and he built a momumental floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. “People say the house is like a boat in its use of space – maximising every opportunity.” If we had a square or circular table, we wouldn’t be able to fit as much in,” says Shaw. Small and intimate on one end, and a bigger space for four or five people on the other. The metal, raised access flooring, typical of an office, has panels that can be lifted up with plungers, revealing storage space below. The bespoke sofa has been absurdly squeezed into the isosceles triangle of the corner. Rather than fight against the scale, the house Shaw and Ashby have created celebrates its smallness with a sense of humour. The breakfast bar is on wheels, to make room for parties. This rawer, industrial palette is juxtaposed with the warm, brown-orange of the kitchen units, created from a veneer that has been twisted and sculpted to create a swirling pattern. As if in testament to the feat of the construction, downstairs concrete blocks remain exposed. “The neighbourhood cats love to come and sit on it,” says Shaw. Shaw bought the plot of land in the same year architect Sophie Hicks completed her award-winning basement home and light has similarly been plumbed in via French windows (which open onto a small terrace) as well as a double-height skylight. The ‘underground house’ is now a category of home in land-scarce London. It’s about finding the areas where you could play and those where you have to be super serious.” “Creating the basement, there were some serious bits of engineering, to avoid the other houses slipping into the hole. Neither a staircase nor a swimming pool (although they did find room for a small plunge pool), the resulting house is fittingly bottom-heavy – pear-shaped – with the majority of living space situated underground. A single grand gesture,” says Shaw, pausing as a lorry squeezes past his car. Then we were talking about making it a swimming pool, with ledges where you’d sleep or have the kitchen. At one point we were going to make the whole house a staircase with different pods or levels on it. Designing the house with his friend Nicholas Ashby, an architect, the creative opportunities that arose from these parameters obsessed the pair. Our only option was to go down,” Shaw explains. However, if it did, it would block out their light – another no-no. Being in a conservation zone, his development would have to resemble the other houses nearby. The 60 metre-square plot came with a catch-22. ![]() “I do everything by trial and error, so I appreciate the unexpected and allow things to be as they are.” His signature, recycled plastic designs are assemblages of colourful oblongs whose texture is something like royal icing squeezed from a tube of toothpaste. ![]() Whilst something going pear-shaped – awry or misshapen – is usually best avoided, for Shaw it is a philosophy of creation whose results can be particularly fruitful. “I like the idea of things going pear-shaped,” Shaw tells me on video call from his car. He contacted the estate agent with a low offer and pursued them everyday for nine months until they accepted. Shaw, who had been keeping an eye out for a development opportunity for years, ignored this inconsistency. Peculiarly, online the empty plot was being advertised as a two- bedroom flat. In 2017, the furniture designer James Shaw noticed a small, overgrown patch of land for sale around the corner from his flat in Shoreditch. ![]()
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