Award-winning London house built in and around 19th-century railway viaduct is for sale

We’ve seen how even the skinniest of strips can be used to build a house in Tokyo and Vietnam. But you would never imagine a house could be built alongside and beneath a 19th-century railway viaduct.

This house does exactly that, and it’s not surprising that when it was built five years ago it was voted the London House of the Year in the London Architecture Awards.

Now the rusted steel house that still turns heads has come onto the market. It has been listed by The Modern House for £1.085 million ($1.92 million) for the leasehold/

The house, in Dartford Street, E17, was designed by Undercurrent Architects, and is defined by its sculpted rusted steel exterior that soars up alongside the old brick viaduct. On the inside, however, it’s all about expansive, contoured white walls that completely hide the fact that much of the house is enclosed beneath the arch of the bridge.

As the architects describe it: “The site is severely constrained by its narrow plot and limited access to light, aspect and views. The building subverts these tight site conditions, encapsulating light and lofty interiors that offer release in spite of constraint.

Light pours into the steel-wrapped shell from skylights at the top, narrow gaps in the sides, and a fully glazed end wall.

A photographer’s studio is incorporated into the building, which is named, appropriately, Archway Studios. The architects say: “The design works with the contrast between the compressed, cavernous qualities of the arch – and the slender, ecclesiastical spaces of the atrium.”

Undercurrent Architects also notes that London is crisscrossed by such railway viaducts “carving through residential areas”. “These elevated structures are significant physical barriers, often forming corridors of conflict, compounded by derelict, de-industrialised arches at ground level.”

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The firm says this house can be a model that could be adapted for further community benefit.

Meanwhile, the listing agency says the slender steel foils that collectively form the shell of the house are also an acoustic barrier, ensuring the open-plan living areas and the bedrooms are undisturbed by the noise of the trains travelling overhead.

Surely, a trainspotter’s heaven.