How the radical Blue House brought joy to a former metalworkers yard

The transportative joy of the Blue House begins the moment you turn the corner from the bus lanes and grit of Hackney Road and catch sight of its duck-egg-blue clapboard façade. The first project by FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste), it was conceived as a family home by its owner and practice co-founder Sean Griffith, his partner Lynn and their daughter Lily, who was six when they moved in. “I remember coming to it when it was a building site and it already feeling like quite a fun playground,” says Lily in our 10-minute film, which explores the experience of growing up in such an iconoclastic home.

The truly fantastical exterior, which Lily describes as “basically a child’s drawing of a house”, came from its mixed use as both a family home and office for FAT. “It’s like a miniature office building with a house stuck on the front,” Sean concurs, its symmetrical square windows lining the upper floors in an uncharacteristically orderly fashion. Inside, however, the expressive floorplan marries pragmatism with concessions to family life, including an Uncommon Projects Formica kitchen, alongside unexpected flourishes at every turn. “My dad is a very playful person,” says Lily, “I think with his architecture he was always trying to rail against the idea of ‘good’ taste”.

Having set up FAT in the early ’90s with Charles Holland and Sam Jacob, their irreverent, postmodern ethos chimed with the heyday of ‘Cool Britannia’. Sean laughs as he recalls the group’s provocative attitude at the time: “If I’m honest, we were trying to upset people.” It’s perhaps surprising, then, to consider the colourful, cheery feel of the house. Bubble-gum pink walls are offset by dashes of teal, brown and mustard yellow, creating an almost archaic approach to colour that feels like a kind of reverse psychology when set against the cold minimalism of the time.

While Blue House might be Marmite by nature, it is undeniably an expression of some hefty ideas about how architecture reflects the periods we live in and, more importantly, how we live. “Even those who don’t like it, they have to take it seriously,” reflects Sean. Returning to his original designs for the home in 2022, he was able to realise another of his ideas: a rooftop garden pod wrapped in the often-maligned material of pebbledash. Inspired by the raw, windswept beauty of Dungeness, the roof room features green steel-framed glazing opening onto a shingled floor. “Someone once said to me it feels kind of like you’re on a ship,” says Lily, “which makes a lot of sense with the seaside element upstairs.”

Reflecting on what finding a new custodian means to him, Sean hopes the new owners will find the same pleasure in the simple act of living within its walls: “What we hope is that whoever would like to buy this house would enjoy it for what it is. It comes across as a place to live in, it’s not a precious artwork. It feels like a home.”