After months of searching, photographers David and Lisa Chancellor came across their new house not in an estate agent’s window, but on a chartered surveyor’s website. This was because it was a tall, thin warehouse in East London that had been converted into offices. This suited the couple because they wanted to combine their work space with their home, but it did leave them with the problem of transforming a utilitarian space into something interesting. They turned to architect Brian Ma Siy, who set about mixing his trademark streamlined, sleek aesthetic with the roughness and rawness of the original space, which the couple were keen to keep.

The building is only 35sq m per floor, so the Chancellors decided to give each level a separate function and identity. The basement and ground floor are the couple’s work space and office, the kitchen and dining area are on the first floor, the sitting room on the second and the bedroom and open double-shower on the third.

Originally, the building stopped at the third floor, giving the bedroom a sloping roof. The solution was to take the roof off and add an extra floor, and have the ceiling of the bedroom raised and levelled. The new floor was made into a simple box-like bathroom with opaque glass walls, containing little more than a freestanding bath. “The light in the room is amazing,” says David. “It seems to bounce off the adjacent buildings and reflect their colours. You can open the doors on the small terraces at the back and front and still be private because the box is set back from the street.”

As the spaces were allocated and refined, subtle architectural touches were added. The chimney breasts in the living room and kitchen were extended, partly to balance them visually, but also to contain and conceal pipework. The original wooden staircase was kept, but stripped, as were the floorboards. However, rather than open the staircase into the room, which was the original plan, it was boxed in and the side facing into the room was smoothly plastered in contrast to the other walls, which are exposed brick.

The living space is deliberately under-designed. Antlers brought back from a holiday on the Balmoral estate hang on the chimney breast, and a pair of old glass-fronted cabinets bought at auction are filled with tin toys. Some of these date from David’s childhood, while others were collected on the couple’s travels through Pakistan, South America and Europe, while they were working for the Red Cross, Help the Aged and the Children’s Society.

The bedroom has a long wall of featureless cupboards, while behind the bed is a deep shelf on which religious icons and ornately framed mirrors are arranged. On the far side of the main doorway is a walk-in shower with matt basalt tiles and a mirrored inset, screened from the room by a frosted glass panel. Apart from the bed, the only other piece of furniture is a battered leather armchair. Lisa says their new home forced them to scale down their belongings. “There would probably have been more, but a few items couldn’t get up the narrow staircase. However, now we’ve got used to living like this I think we both feel that we could get rid of even more.”

In the kitchen, about a foot and a half of space was gained when the suspended polystyrene ceiling tiles of the old offices were ripped down. Brian suggested lining the work surfaces up against the wall, but Lisa, who is a keen cook, felt instinctively that they should be in front of the two large original metal-framed windows. “I liked the fact that the kitchen had an industrial appearance with plenty of steel work-surface,” says Lisa. “It’s a fantastic space to work in, and I can quite happily spend the whole of Sunday in here.”

A large charcoal drawing of Manhattan by Sarah Medway dominates the wall by the dining table, which is ringed by colourful Verner Panton chairs. “It’s a clean and comfortable space; well thought through, but not obviously so,” says Brian, clearly a convert to the idea of taking the rough with the smooth.

www.masiy.com

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