Hogarth Architects Home - UK

Hogarth hidden house

Ian Hogarth of Hogarth Architects is fervent about light and space and this passion drove him to design and build an outstanding, ecofriendly, luxury home in an almost unimaginably small space in Kensington: a project certainly worthy of its inclusion in Channel 4’s Grand Designs programme. A marriage between the traditional mews setting and a desire for a modern space was found by concealing the majority of the building behind a ‘rabbit-hole’ style entrance, effectively creating a ‘Hidden House’. More than half of the floor space is concealed underground in an extensive basement.

Inside, it is both minimalist and decadent; Stairs immediately to the right of the entrance lead down to the basement, which has come to be the most popular family domain. It holds a large entertaining space comprising of a flashing-fluoro dance floor complete with a large sunken seating area in front of an impressive home cinema.

Seven Amina AIW5X invisible loudspeakers were selected to create the 7.1 surround system with the centre channel speakers positioned into the wall which is used to project films onto, ensuring the sound comes right from where it should with no visual impact. This approach ensured not only flawless sound delivery but allowed the intricate, seamless design in the basement to remain intact and uninterrupted.

Working in a way analogous to acoustical musical instruments these speakers reproduce sound through a multitude of tiny vibrations rather than through the pistonic action of conventional loudspeakers. This technology enables the speakers to be installed in a wall or ceiling and then covered by a 2mm final skim of plaster or similar and thus, once installed, there is no visible sign of their position.

The stunning result has delighted Ian who commented, “The sound is very impressive; the home cinema experience is fantastic with a surprising amount of output and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the Amina Invisible Loudspeakers to my clients.”