Aldine Voss

Keaston House

Keaston House is a private residence in North London commissioned through Ostler & Finn. The interior scope was handed to Aldine Voss at concept stage. The brief was simple: do not impose. Work within what the architecture is already saying.

Status

Completed 2024

Status

Completed 2024

Architect

Ostler & Finn

Architect

Ostler & Finn

Developer

Private Client

Developer

Private Client

Builder

Merton & Field Construction

Builder

Merton & Field Construction

The Start

Ostler & Finn had spent six months developing the architectural language for Keaston House before the interior scope was assigned. The language was already specific: pale timber, dark stone, black aluminium framing, large-format tile. The ceiling plane — timber-lined, carried continuously from the kitchen volume through to the studio and the bathrooms — was a structural decision, not a finish. Every interior decision that followed had to sit inside that system without disturbing it.

The brief to Aldine Voss was not to add. It was to complete. That is a different kind of problem from a blank brief, and it requires a different discipline — the willingness to set aside preference entirely and follow the logic of someone else's vision to its conclusion. Most interior studios are not trained in that discipline. It is the entire basis on which Aldine Voss was founded.

The mid point

The kitchen joinery is ash throughout — flat-fronted, detailed to the same tolerance as the window frames on the exterior elevation. The dark honed stone worktop runs without interruption from the cooking run to the island, which carries a solid timber prep surface inset into the stone. Nothing was specified for effect. Every material is a continuation of what the architecture had already established.

The living room storage wall uses the same ash system. The dark walnut media unit is the only tonal shift in the ground floor volume — grounding the wall rather than competing with it.

The bedroom carries the timber-lined ceiling soffit into the sleeping zone. The joinery — wardrobe and shelving built into the same wall plane — continues the ash specification from the floors below. There is no point in the building where the material register changes without reason.

The studio required a working space that functioned practically while remaining part of the house. The ceiling lining, the joinery system, and the floor tile are identical to every other room. The garage door is the only element that acknowledges a different use.

The bathroom resolves the palette at its quietest. The timber ceiling soffit stops at the wet zone boundary and gives way to white plaster — the only moment in the building where the ceiling changes, and one detailed so the transition reads as deliberate rather than unresolved.

Final result

Keaston House was delivered on programme and handed over to the client by Ostler & Finn. The interior scope was presented as part of the practice's work — because it was. There was no visible seam between the architectural and interior decisions. The client experienced the project as a single coherent vision from a single coherent team.

Working with Aldine Voss required us to do very little managing. We handed them the drawing set, we agreed the brief, and they disappeared into the work. What came back was interior documentation that sat inside our own set as though it had always been there. That is exactly what we needed.

James Ostler, Ostler & Finn

Ostler & Finn retained full authorship. Aldine Voss brought the interior scope to a standard the practice could not have resourced internally without a significant increase in overhead. The collaboration worked because both studios understood their role from the first conversation — and neither deviated from it.

"Working with Aldine Voss required us to do very little managing. We handed them the drawing set, we agreed the brief, and they disappeared into the work. What came back was interior documentation that sat inside our own set as though it had always been there. That is exactly what we needed."

"Studio Aldine is a specialist interior design partnership working exclusively with architecture practices and design agencies — embedded in your team, carrying your brief, credited to your practice"

James Ostler, Ostler & Finn

Joanne Smith

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The Feilden

The Feilden is a private family residence in South London commissioned through Kellaway Reid. The interior scope was assigned to Aldine Voss at technical design stage. The brief was specific: create a home that supports work, education, and daily family life without requiring the family to spend significant time maintaining it.

Learn more

"The brief was harder than it looked. A family that works and educates at home needs an interior that functions at a professional level without reading like one. Aldine Voss understood that from the first conversation. The result is a house that the family uses hard every day and that still looks exactly as it was intended to."

Kellaway Reid