Architect Pierre d'Avoine, who conceived the project and brought in developer Crispin Kelly of Baylight Properties to see it through, has made some clever moves. The High Street is busy, a whooshing traffic corridor. So he places the house end-on to the street, where it presents a blank, secure façade right up to the third floor, behind which is the staircase. The yard alongside it lies behind a wall, so creating an enclosed courtyard - one which runs beneath the house, moreover, to provide shelter for cars. This is possible because the house is placed up on a storey-high brick plinth, which gives way to columns on the yard side. At the top of the street façade a huge window to the stairs and rooftop garden room gives a sense of space while being well above traffic level. The lower floors have floor-to ceiling windows in the sides. Although the alley at the side running down to the river is a public right of way, this scarcely impinges because of the way the house is set up high.

It's an engaging landmark on the High Street, a kind of rectangular lighthouse getting steadily lighter as it goes up. Brick at the bottom, warm reddish Douglas fir above that, and then the lantern-like big window at the top. Inside, it is full of surprises. On the ground floor there is not very much - an entrance lobby, a little study/bedroom. But you also find a narrow staircase running down to a basement room fitted out as a mini-cinema. The two main bedrooms and their bathrooms are on the first floor. Above that, the whole floor is given over to one long open living-dining-freestanding kitchen area. And above that comes the bonus. Because the house has no conventional garden, it is given a garden terrace on the roof, complete with a garden room overlooking it. I can imagine this eyrie becoming a place to work, or maybe a place to put up guests occasionally, though it's two floors down to the nearest lavatory.