The famous architect, who founded Cullinan Studio, built 62 Camden Mews with his wife Roz as their family home in the 1960s.
The Grade II* listed brick and timber custom building, still in family ownership, is now for sale for the first time.
Ted and Roz Cullinan lived in the house until their deaths, in 2019 and 2022, respectively. Their children, Kate, Emma and Tom, say they hope for a buyer “who will love it for the icon that it is”.
Described by Cullinan Studio as an “architectural manifesto”, the “upside down” passive solar house innovatively turns 90 degrees towards the south and is placed against the party wall.
He was inspired by Cullinan’s time in Berkeley, California in the 1950s, visiting California case study houses with huge glass walls, and by Frank Lloyd Wright, whom Cullinan met.
Cullinan built his house on weekends with the help of family and friends. He used it to illustrate a “logical building sequence” in lectures he gave around the world.
The house was classified as Grade II* in 2007.
Source: This Modern House
62 Camden Mews
Its upper floors include a 12 m long living room, which runs from east to west and is cantilevered along the south facade, and a covered studio roof. These are accessible via an internal concrete staircase or an external staircase.
The ground and party walls of the house are built of London brick, while the upper floors are clad in wooden shutters. Structural elements include in-situ concrete posts and beams and cantilevered timber frame elements of the first floor.
Cullinan Studio architect Roddy Langmuir said it would be “wonderful if Ted’s House could continue to be visited by young architects learning their craft – as it has been for decades”.
He added: “It could be taken over by a university like their London research base or a trust or [other] institution?
“The house is a visual essay in structural layering and a subtle manifesto of how a compact home on a small-town lot can follow the sun and celebrate nature… inspiring people with and without formal training!”
Edward (Ted) Cullinan founded Edward Cullinan Architects, a sustainability practice, in 1965. In 2012, the practice became Cullinan Studio. In 2020 she set up a second studio in Nottingham.
A memory of our home
Emma Cullinan
If local planners had their way, 62 Camden Mews would be a pastiche of the Victorian houses behind that site in the Mews. At the time it was built, Camden Mews contained a mixture of light industrial factories, vacant lots, a few brick houses and car repair shops. After much discussion with the planners, Dad got around to building his ground-breaking design and later the planning department asked anyone building a new home in the mew to be inspired by his house as seen on the street today.
Despite influences such as the California Case Study Houses, Frank Lloyd Wright and Gerrit Rietveld, the house is very Ted, incorporating his signature style of a solid ground floor with a glass, floating upper floor.
Instead of facing the house on the meadows, with a small terrace in front, it runs sideways along the property and absorbs a lot of sun and nature from its south-facing glass wall and upper terrace. This relationship with nature and the elements makes it an early example of sustainable design.
Unlike many people who say they built their own house, Dad literally built this one. While working for National Theater designer Denys Lasdun, he spent his weekends building 62 Camden Mews between 1962 and 1964. Dad recalled a neighbor who would come round every weekend and say; “You’ll never finish it.” He did. It was habitable until 1964 when our family moved in.
It is a house of its time and has changed little, especially since it was awarded Grade II* status in 2007. He’s looking for someone to love him for the icon he is.
Kate Cullinan
When we moved into 62 Camden Mews there was no front door and it was still very much a building site. My sister, brother and I learned to build from a very young age – first mixing mortar in the sand pit down in the courtyard and then donning wellies to suffocate the concrete as it was poured into the foundations.
The house was like a playground and Dad had a knack for turning everything into a game. He built a swing set in an unfinished garage and created lots of circuits, places to camp, stages and a tree house to play. He needed to think of lots of ways to keep three young children busy while he and his friends, students and family did heavy construction work.
He built the house on the weekends when he worked at Lasduns during the week to earn money to pay for the building materials, so it was a work-in-progress house. (He also obtained loose remains from the Lasdun buildings: including bricks from the Royal College of Physicians.)