Peter Morris Completes Pink 'Cloud House' in North London

Architect Peter Morris spent nearly a decade, including five years in planning with Camden Council, to complete The Cloud House — a pair of pink, arch-fronted homes in Gospel Oak, North London, finished in August 2026.

The project comprises two adjoining three-story houses wrapped in a facade of enormous arches, scalloped rooflines and turquoise-framed windows. It sits on a street of grey brick buildings, directly opposite the Grade I-listed St Martin's Church. Morris enlarged and simplified the church's elaborate arches into the building's defining feature. The effect lands somewhere between a Gothic church and a Miami beachfront hotel.

The setting helped justify the liberties. Nearby, St Martin's Hall houses a French school behind a stone facade resembling a medieval castle. For Morris, these eccentric neighbors offered a fitting context for a house that could bend the rules itself.

Where does the pink come from?

The palette has a personal origin. Morris and his wife, television producer Emily Kennedy, drew inspiration from their honeymoon in Miami, where the pastel Art Deco buildings left a lasting impression. Pale pink render wraps the exterior. Duck-egg blue metalwork outlines the tall windows and gates. The arches repeat across the elevations at varying heights, giving the three-story building its cloud-like profile.

Construction is relatively conventional beneath the curves. A structural steel and blockwork framework supports decorative arches made from dense, recyclable polystyrene supplied by Build-Lite. The lightweight components are shaped into exaggerated curves, then finished with a waterproof coating and textured pink render. Morris positioned the sculptural elements himself on site to achieve the facade's precise geometry.

What's inside the 133-square-metre home?

Morris and his family occupy the more colorful of the two residences. It spans 133 square metres and opens into a shared living and kitchen space with:

• Pale turquoise epoxy flooring
• Pink-and-white marquee stripes across the ceilings
• An emerald green kitchen
• Green-and-white striped cabinetry by Plykea (a plywood-fronted kitchen brand) around a three-meter-long pale pink island

The same appetite for color runs through the bathrooms, while painted arches and rounded doorways bring the exterior's geometry indoors.

Bedrooms occupy the two upper floors, with a home office at the front of the ground level. Above, a four-meter-long turquoise skylight opens onto a roof terrace enclosed by pink scalloped walls. An outdoor bathtub sits among the rooftop furnishings, oriented toward views over Gospel Oak.

Next door, the larger 165-square-metre residence inverts that arrangement. Its bedrooms sit below a top-floor living area with barrel-vaulted ceilings and access to a further terrace. Those interiors have been left open for the neighboring owners to personalize.

Why did it take so long?

The two houses were developed collaboratively by their separate owners, replacing an existing Victorian property on the site. Camden Council's planning process consumed five of the project's roughly ten years. The design also reflects Morris's long-standing interest in postmodern architecture, a thread he has followed throughout his career as an architect and artist.

Photography is by Juliet Murphy Photography.

The Cloud House now stands as evidence that a heritage-rich London street can absorb a house this loud — and that recyclable polystyrene, not masonry, can carry a Gothic arch.