Helena Rivera’s south London home came with impeccable architectural credentials. Housed in the famed mid-century Dulwich Estate, it was built by Austin Vernon & Partners as part of a postwar initiative to provide well-designed, affordable housing. “When you find a good piece of 1950s design like this, you want to take care of it, not change it,” says Rivera, a Colombian-born architect, who lives here with her husband Hernando Alvarez, an editor at BBC World Service, and their two sons. The pair may not have wanted to alter or extend their home, but they could see ways to improve it.
The first thing they did was reinstate a window seat in the living room. Rivera went back to the original 1959 drawings and discovered that what had recently been used as a deep sill for plants was marked on the plans as a day bed. “It’s a really sunny spot with a view of the garden, so it makes sense,” Rivera says. She had it upholstered in hot orange wool by Kvadrat.
She also designed a slatted screen made from sections of polished black walnut, which looks every inch an original mid-century feature. It was inspired by a structure that once flanked the porch, but had long since disappeared. A neighbouring house still had theirs intact, though, which gave Rivera a starting point. It now works as a subtle divider between the hallway and living room. “As you move further into the seating area, your angle changes and the panels make a more solid screen,” she says.
The house’s original staircase remains intact; it was built without risers, to be less obtrusive. Rivera replaced radiators with heating embedded in the skirting boards to free up wall space. The parquet flooring is also original, with trims around the edges made from cork. But the windows have been replaced: “If I had the money, I’d reinstall the Crittall windows, but double-glazed,” she says. The shelving in the living room is by Vitsoe. “Because it’s wall hung, you see more floor space, which makes the room feel bigger.”
The boldest stamp the couple put on the house is colour, in the form of furniture, paintings, and off-beat finds collected over the years. “I’d never have a monochrome home,” Rivera says. An orange painting by her mother, artist Mariana Rebolledo, sits above the gas fire, and a pair of 1950s “Penguin” armchairs are upholstered in pale green Arne Jacobsen fabric. Deocorative objects include metal bus route signs from a depot in Bogotá; a set of vintage posters printed in Stalingrad, discovered in the loft of their previous home; and a huge 1909 Stanfords map of the British Isles that once hung in Alvarez’s primary school in Colombia. His brother became a teacher there and, when the map was deemed obsolete, he rescued it and sent it to Alvarez in London.
“It’s made quite a round trip,” says Rivera, who is equally well-travelled: she has just returned from Latin America, as she combines her London practice with working on the Medellín Urban Innovation, a project aiming to combat social inequality through better city planning. “It’s a good balance – it keeps things in perspective.”
House rules
Pet interiors hate TVs in social areas; spotlights
What do you look for in furniture? Grain, texture, good joints, sharp detailing and function. A little history is pretty seductive, too
Most treasured possession A kitchen cabinet of my grandma’s. The sound of its drawers brings back memories of looking for sweets in her kitchen
Best thing about your neighbourhood The wildlife: last winter, we watched a fox train her cubs to hunt in our garden
House rules The football stays outside and we all eat together
First piece of furniture you bought An Ikea bookcase – not a keeper. Nothing beats Vitsoe; it’s a gem of a system
One thing you’d change I’d replace the uPVC windows with Crittall frames, as originally intended, but I’d cheat and have them double-glazed
Worst decorating mistake Bad lighting. There’s no need to flood a room with 60w spotlights, as I did 20 years ago
Biggest extravagance Setting up our bedroom as a home movie theatre.
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