Cloud House: Ten Years, Two Homes, One Very Pink Statement

Architect Peter Morris spent ten years getting Cloud House built — and Camden Council, remarkably, liked that it was personal. "The council saw my personal connection as a positive thing; they said my personality comes through with this house," Morris said of the planning process for his soft-pink, arch-fronted home on the southern edge of Hampstead Heath.

The project, set on a quiet Gospel Oak road off Hampstead Heath, comprises two semi-detached houses. One belongs to Morris and his partner, producer Emily Kennedy. The other belongs to clients who are about to move in. The street around it runs from a Grade II-listed French school to an old church, Victorian homes and modest new housing blocks — a blend that, Morris argues, let his design fit in by standing out.

How candy floss became planning policy?

The name makes sense from the roof terrace, where a scalloped top edge painted soft pink frames the Gospel Oak skyline. The building's volumes follow the massing and rooflines of its neighbours, and its arches echo Grade I-listed St Martin's Church across the street. Strip away the pink and green, and this would read as a polite infill scheme. Morris didn't strip it away.

"My work is typically more reserved than this," he said. "I might start colourful, but things get toned down quite a lot in the end. Here, I wanted to follow through with my own home."

The site held a worn Victorian property where the family had lived, plagued by rising damp and urgent fixes. Morris applied to replace it, worked with Camden Council over several years, and finally got permission. The design changed significantly along the way — "only for the better," he says. The arches and the colours stayed. Community crowdsourcing got the painting and decorating finished on time.

What is it made of?

Conventional brick and concrete underneath. The cladding is the clever part: light polycarbonate-free polystyrene stone, treated with rough render so it reads like its masonry peers. Morris calls it cost-effective and highly functional — it adds thermal mass and insulation, is easy to mould, lightweight and waterproof. The financial strain of the decade-long process made pragmatism non-negotiable.

Inside, three levels. The generous ground floor holds living spaces and Morris's home office. Bedrooms and bathrooms sit on the two upper floors, and a glass skylight above the stairwell opens onto the roof terrace — a sun trap that serves as the main outdoor space. A small courtyard downstairs awaits a planned herb garden.

The interiors lean hard into the fairytale promised by the street view. Painted arches on walls merge with arch-shaped doors. Round, ball-shaped plaster mouldings nod to Sir John Soane's Museum. Morris sums it up himself: "It's the museum of Peter and Emily." A home as self-portrait, then. Verdict: committed.

Morris, in bright blue overalls and round black-rimmed glasses, is candid about the ambition behind the charm offensive. He hopes the house brings more commissions in the Cloud House vein, where he can, as he puts it, make someone else's dreams a reality too.

"The Cloud House is a colourful, joyful place, but it is also a statement about what residential architecture can be," he said. After a ten-year build on a street of Grade-listed neighbours, the statement is best read as proof that Camden's planning process occasionally rewards personality.

Photography by Will Pryce.