Hello

and thank you for visiting the Polygon Architects website and taking an interest in my work.

Without knowing it at the time Polygon Architects began its life when my partner and I bought a charming and somewhat outdated Victorian terrace house in Harringay. We lived in this house for about a year, during which time we had our second child (born in the dining room!) and began to understand what we liked and didn’t like about the house.  Between nappy changes and sleepness nights we worked through our brief, and made our plans to extend and undertake a top to bottom renovation.  (you can see this project here Glenwood Road).

At this point in my career I was working for a large commercial architecture practice and while felt I had a good understanding of what was ‘good architecture’ it wasn’t until I lived in my own home, in the spaces which I had designed and laboured over that I experienced with such clarity, how architecture has the power to improve lives.

The way in which the new floor plan was configured, the use of materials - in our case the long handmade Italian bricks, rich Douglas fir timber, lovely birch joinery framing a generous west facing bench seat - the increased daylight, the elegance of carefully arranged alignments of each element, the generous views to the garden, places to store all of life’s STUFF - the buggy, the scooter, the cleaning bits - all these parts of a home, now carefully considered and designed as a whole, made us feel happy and brought us a sense of calm and delight every day.

We had our home.

Working on this project I also discovered my love for each step of the construction process. I lived in the house during the works (despite no heating or hot water during winter!) and had the privilege to follow the building progress day by day, led by Andy the main contractor, a brilliant man, who has taught me a great deal then and continues to do so.

Budget was of course tight (as they always are!) and so to save on costs I took my hand to building parts of the works. I am proud to say that I built the garden studio (Garden Studio). I bought the necessary tools, watched YouTube videos, carefully planned each stage, taking it step by step. Following many months of working weekends I had built a small timber frame, fully insulated, bright and comfortable beautiful little garden office. I installed the glazing, built installed the glazing in the door, learned to chisel the hinges and cut in the door hardware. I hung the massive mirror on the façade, installed the cedar cladding and lifted all the soil for the wildflower green roof (with a few willing friends help!).

Every weekend I would be at Screwfix, timber yards, building depots learning first hand the components of construction. I discovered my love for CNC fabrication and designed and built the birch plywood staircase up to the loft on my own (a bold first CNC project!). I sanded floors, painted all the walls and woodwork and built the pantry shelves and book cases.

And I loved doing it all, and along the way I had fallen in love with that house.

And so, soon after, I knew that I needed to change direction as an Architect. I didn’t want to work for developers, on buildings at a large scale, removed from the personal anymore. I wanted to focus on providing what I now felt for other people just like me and my family, to wrangle with indiviual storage requirements, the changing needs we face with a growing family, and to work transforming houses for people just like myself, to bring delight into our lives, and so that they may also fall in love with their home.

And so, in 2015 I took the leap, founded Polygon Architects and begun upon this journey.

Paul Legon