00:00When Marta bought a crumbling garage squeezed between London homes, the space looked barely
00:05large enough for a car. Yet she believed she could turn it into a home. As the work progressed,
00:10a plain brick wall concealed what was taking shape behind it. From the alley, there was almost
00:16nothing to see. But when the narrow entrance finally opened, the view beyond it seemed impossible.
00:22How could all of that fit inside such a tiny plot? But before we start, smash the like button
00:28and make sure to subscribe if you haven't, and hit that notification bell so that you
00:32won't miss any new stories. The garage stood in Dalston, in East London. Victorian houses,
00:39garden walls, and established trees surrounded the site. There was no broad driveway leading
00:44to an empty field, no generous strip of land waiting behind the building. Its boundaries
00:49were already drawn by everything around it. The plot measured just 45 square meters, hemmed
00:56in on every side. Looking at the old garage, it was easy to imagine somewhere to park, keep
01:01tools, or stack boxes. Imagining a home required fitting a kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, stairs,
01:08and space to sit into that same confined setting. Every addition seemed to demand room that was
01:14already needed for something else. Marta Nowicka was an interior architect. Adapting difficult spaces
01:20was part of her work, and the neglected garage offered a challenge with unusually clear limits.
01:25She could change what stood inside the boundaries. She could not simply push those boundaries farther
01:31apart. Even a drawing of the site exposed the problem. Spread the rooms across a single level,
01:37and the plan quickly became crowded. Divide that plan with walls, and the rooms grew smaller still.
01:43Leave everything open, and the practical needs of a home remained. People still needed somewhere
01:48private to sleep and wash. Fitting furniture was only the beginning. A chair needed room
01:53to pull away from a table. A doorway needed space to open. Someone had to be able to carry things
01:59between levels. On this plot, the gaps between objects mattered almost as much as the objects
02:05themselves. A plan could appear full long before it felt usable. The project would become known as
02:11the Gauss, a name joining garage and house. But that name concealed an important distinction.
02:17Marta was creating a new house on the site of the old garage. The worn structure was not simply
02:23receiving a fresh coat of paint and a staircase. Its modest presence in the lane was the starting
02:28point for something much more ambitious. The surrounding gardens mattered to the design. Filling the site
02:34with a bulky building might create floor area, but it would also make the new home feel squeezed into the
02:40backs of its neighbors. Marta wanted the building to belong among the walls and trees around it.
02:45That meant the answer could not depend entirely on piling an obvious tower above the old entrance.
02:51Part of the space had to come from somewhere less visible. The design extended downward, placing a
02:57lower level partly beneath the ground. This changed the volume available without demanding a wider plot.
03:03From above, the site still occupied the same small patch of London. Within it, however,
03:08the house could continue below the level someone saw from the lane. That solved one problem and
03:14immediately created another. Rooms could fit below ground, but a room on a drawing was not yet
03:20somewhere people would want to spend their day. If the lower level felt buried, the extra area would
03:25offer little sense of freedom. Marta needed daylight to reach the places furthest from the sky.
03:30Large windows alone could not answer everything. In a narrow site surrounded by other buildings,
03:36the position of an opening mattered as much as its size. Light entering near the top could be stopped
03:42by the floor beneath it. The house needed a route for daylight through its interior. The design introduced
03:48light wells and sections of glass flooring. Solid surfaces that would normally separate one level
03:54from the next were interrupted by transparent areas. Light could travel beyond the room where it first
03:59entered. Looking through those sections also revealed depth that a solid floor would have hidden. The glass
04:05did not create extra land, it changed how much of the building could be experienced at once.
04:11A person standing in one part of the house could see light and space continuing elsewhere,
04:16rather than meeting another closed surface. The lower rooms became connected to the brighter parts
04:21above them. On the courtyard side, larger areas of glazing opened the interior toward the garden.
04:27Greenery became part of the view from inside. Instead of ending at a plain wall a few steps away,
04:33the eye could continue through the glass toward plants and outdoor space, but making the interior
04:39more open brought another difficulty into focus. Other homes stood nearby. A window that welcomed
04:45daylight could also leave a room exposed. A comfortable bedroom needed more than a bright view,
04:51if that view came with the feeling of being watched. Closing the curtains would defeat part of the work
04:56already done. Replacing the glazing with a solid wall would restore privacy while taking away the openness
05:02Marta was trying to create. The design needed something between those two extremes. A perforated brick
05:08screen provided that layer. Gaps in the brickwork admitted light while the screen helped interrupt
05:14direct views. From outside, the familiar material belonged to the surrounding walls. From within,
05:20its pattern broke the daylight into smaller shapes. The house could have a protective edge without
05:26being sealed behind an uninterrupted barrier. Plants softened that boundary further. A living wall brought
05:33greenery alongside the building, giving the narrow space another texture and another layer of depth.
05:39Brick, leaves, and glass worked together. The garden was no longer simply a small area left over after
05:46the rooms had been fitted in. The exterior still had to hold all of these decisions together.
05:51Yellow London stock brick anchored the street-facing wall to its surroundings. Above it, cedar shingles
05:57gave the higher parts of the house a warmer, lighter appearance among the trees. The overlapping pieces
06:03created a textured surface that suited the garden setting. An ash tree became part of the experience of
06:09the house. Windows framed its branches, and the timber-clad upper rooms sat beside its canopy.
06:15Views that might otherwise have ended at another building could rest on leaves and changing light.
06:21The confined location remained, but the design found different things to look toward within it.
06:26Meanwhile, the entrance became more discreet. The door was integrated into the brick façade,
06:32with narrow glazing beside it. From the lane, the frontage gave away very little about the arrangement
06:38beyond. The new house had acquired more space while keeping an entrance that seemed almost determined
06:43not to announce it. Behind that wall, another kind of space was being protected. The room needed simply
06:49to move around. Stairs, landings, corridors, and doorways all had to share the limited footprint with
06:56the rooms themselves. A large house could absorb some wasted circulation. Here, an awkward passage could
07:02take away the area, needed beside a bed or around a table. The route through the building had to feel
07:08natural without consuming the whole plan. Open stairs and connected living areas helped the interior
07:14flow. Private rooms still had boundaries, but the house avoided dividing every activity into another
07:21enclosed box. The choice of materials reinforced that connection. Timber, brick, copper, and steel appeared
07:29throughout, giving different levels a shared character. There was still a trace of the old
07:34garage in that character. Exposed fittings and industrial details sat beside warm wood and carefully
07:41finished surfaces. The building did not need to pretend it had always been a grand London townhouse.
07:47Its unusual beginnings remained visible in the language of the interior. Underfoot, oak boards formed a
07:54herringbone pattern. Copper pipework, steel details, and terracotta introduced different colors and
08:00textures. There was something to notice close up as well as across a room. The larger trick was spatial,
08:07but the house also had to feel comfortable when someone stopped moving, sat down, and looked around.
08:12The place that began as a garage needed to work as a home even after the first surprise had passed.
08:19Eventually, the separate decisions could be understood together.
08:22The discreet door opened onto a home that was far harder to judge from inside than its narrow frontage
08:29suggested. Near the entrance, a bedroom and study space were fitted into the plan. The glazed view
08:35toward the brick screen demonstrated why that patterned wall mattered. There was daylight without
08:41the room opening directly onto everything outside. What had looked like an exterior detail was serving someone
08:47sitting or resting just behind it. The stairs then led downward. This was the direction that might have
08:53suggested a storage cellar. Instead, the lower level contained a kitchen and dining area connected
09:00to a planted terrace. Glass and outdoor space gave the room a visual destination beyond its own walls.
09:07The descent did not end at a dark, forgotten bottom of the house. Timber cabinets, pale worktops, and
09:14open space around the dining area made it somewhere to use every day. The lower level had a purpose central
09:20to the home. Preparing food, sharing a meal, and looking out toward the plants were all part of the
09:26space that had been created beneath the original view from the street. Returning upward revealed the
09:32other half of the arrangement. The open staircase connected the levels without making each feel
09:37like a separate little building. Sections of glass allowed glimpses beyond the surface underfoot.
09:42The openings that had solved the daylight problem now made the journey through the house more
09:47surprising. Higher up, the bedroom looked toward the ash tree. Mirrored wardrobe doors reflected the
09:54surroundings, extending the sense of the view within the room. Nearby, the sitting room offered a wood
10:00burning stove. Then the shower room offered a final change of direction. Its glass ceilings opened the
10:06view straight upward. After the neighboring walls, the carefully screened windows, and the narrow entrance,
10:12there was the sky. The space where overlooking could have been a concern had a view that did not
10:17depend on facing another home. The completed design contained approximately 126 square meters of
10:25floor space across three levels on a plot of only 45 square meters. The increase came from the arrangement
10:31of the building, not from acquiring a neighboring garden. What had looked like a single cramped opportunity
10:37from the lane had become a home with distinct places to cook, sleep, work, and relax. No individual
10:43feature explained the whole result. Going down created room but made daylight more important.
10:49Bringing in light made screening necessary. Connecting the levels kept them from feeling isolated.
10:55The quiet facade allowed the building to sit within its surroundings while concealing how much had
11:00changed behind it. The boundaries of the plot had never moved, but behind that quiet brick wall,
11:06the boundaries of the building. Marta had changed everything.
