Shared space: the family home in Hackney has a picture window with a cosy bench seat for the children to read and chat
(Picture: Jim Stephenson 2022)As anyone who has visited a family home knows, the old William Morris adage that a home should be beautiful and useful is easier said than done when accommodating young children. Urban design director Anna Mansfield and her husband, chief financial officer Ian Warren, faced this problem when they moved with their children to a five-bedroom fixer-upper in Hackney in 2018. The couple bought the Victorian terrace house in a London Fields conservation area for £1.3 million but the property felt worn out, with an old-fashioned layout and cramped feel.
By the time the pandemic hit, Mansfield was expecting the couple’s third child, and the strain of balancing home-schooling with working from home threw the house’s flaws into sharp relief. “We all felt very constrained. The house definitely didn’t work for modern family life,” remembers Mansfield, who had trained as an architect. “Loads of my friends are architects, so it made sense to go for someone we already knew.”
