EBBA founder's all-timber London apartment celebrates "alive and imperfect" wood

https://www.dezeen.com/2025/11/27/ebba-architects-founder-all-timber-london-apartment/







EBBA Architects founder Benni Allan has renovated his own London apartment in a former tea factory, which features walls, floors, furniture and even speakers crafted from Douglas fir. Located on the top floor of a canalside plot in east London, Living with Timber is the self-designed home of Allan, who runs the nearby studio EBBA.







The architect clad the interior with Douglas fir throughout as a love letter to the material. "Timber is adaptable, warm and tactile," Allan told Dezeen. "The versatility and sense of craft the material brings is something that isn't appreciated enough. This project became a kind of essay on how to live with wood, testing how far we could take a single material in different applications."







Allan reconfigured the layout of the loft apartment, which was first turned into flats in the 1980s, to create an open-plan living space and kitchen. This involved the placement of floor-to-ceiling Douglas fir joinery. Running along the length of one wall, smooth cabinetry conceals all of the kitchen appliances behind slim doors.







"The joinery also resolves the awkward geometry of the original flanking wall that was at a harsh angle," explained Allan. "The renovation was really about trying to open up as much as possible to get the most amount of volume, while inserting carefully considered interventions," he added. This also meant raising all of the apartment's door frames to full height.

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