Levring House remakes the formerly vacant corner plot of a typical London mews in the Bloomsbury Conservation area. Through careful and inventive design, the client’s contemporary programme for spacious, luxury living is accommodated without the new building’s exterior contradicting the historic typology of the mews. As in a palazzo, the ground floor deals with entry, vehicles, business and guests. Unusually, on the first floor, the kitchen and living spaces neighbour the master bedroom, responding to a desire by the clients not to have to carry cups of tea up flights of stairs to their bedroom. In spite of site restrictions, the whole house is filled with natural light and sky and a generous sense of space, while maintaining a modest street facade. The new house was developed around a contemporary reinterpretation of the London lightwell. A series of volumes step up from the basement to the top of the house, wrapping around the lightwell and opening the whole house to daylight. The internal interlocking volumes create a house of complexity yet with a sense of calm simplicity. On the facade, alignments, setbacks and materiality maintain consistency with the existing mews buildings. The exterior is clad in fine quality brick and lightly-finished bronze. With its third storey almost invisible from the street and another level entirely hidden in the basement, the discretion of the house’s exterior belies the 600sqm of living space within.