A former school sports hall in London has been reinhabited as a home and studio for its architect residents, who realised that living in a former school might be the ultimate lesson.
Choosing to live in a former school gym requires a certain confidence, a confidence London-and Milan-based architecture studio Tutto Bene directors Felizia Berchtold and Oskar Kohnen have in spades. For the couple, this London loft offered exactly what most people might shy away from: scale, discipline, and a building that knows precisely what it is. It was, in every sense, a chance to go back to school.
Built in 1902 by British architect T.J. Bailey, one of London’s most sought-after school architects, celebrated for symmetrical façades, dramatic rooflines with cupolas and gables, the building now serves as both their home base and creative atelier for Tutto Bene. “If Milan draws the gaze outward, London turns it inward,” Berchtold explains. “It’s where most of our work happens and where many of our closest friends live.”
The loft occupies the school’s former sports hall beneath the main roof. Naturally introverted, it has no outward views, only a three-storey volume with timber-trussed ceilings and a large gallery window. “It feels very cosy, like a sanctuary in the city,” Berchtold says. “There’s a strong ritual to the daily movement: waking up and going to sleep in the sky, then ascending and descending through the building. Even without outward views, you never feel cut off. There is so much sky that it avoids any sense of claustrophobia.”
Felizia Berchtold and Oskar Kohnen, directors of London-and Milan-based architecture studio Tutto Bene.
The entryway balances scale and intimacy with a large 1950s Italian vase by Angelo Bragalini from Béton Brut Gallery. Fritz Hansen Series 7 chairs add sculptural form, while Markus Oehlen’s Self Portrait introduces a playful, contemporary touch.
A zinc spiral staircase connects the studio to the living quarters above, revealing slender Victorian fluted columns, pointed trusses, and tall glazed panels that frame nothing but sky. Pictured: Knoll Saarinen Tulipside table.
The ground floor now serves as their studio: triple-height, open-plan, with six-metre walls punctuated by Victorian columns and clerestory windows. The herringbone floor still bears brass hooks from badminton nets, a nod to the energy the space has always contained. “We sometimes call our work here ‘idea ping pong,’ a continuous rally of creative development,” Kohnen says.
Living in a former gym foregrounds the body, Kohnen says, shaping movement, thought and feeling. “Spaces are physical and psychological first, and visual second. It reinforces something we’ve always believed: architecture doesn’t just frame life, it shapes how we move, think and feel.”
The loft is a space for experimentation, hosting gatherings, and making ideas tangible.“Big ideas need space,” Kohnen says. “And this building knows how to hold them.”
A quartet of black paintings, executed in the same technique as the couple’s Milan works, alternately reads like a night-sky window or a white cross drawing the gaze inward, balancing intimacy and scale in the office. Pictured: Herman Miller Eames Group Management chairs.
The bedroom at the top of the loft features a six-metre-long atelier window, while the deliberately low bespoke bed, by Tutto Bene keeps the scale human, countering the soaring roof above. Pictured: B&B Italia Amanta chair designed by Mario Bellini in the corner.
