Tin House

David Adjaye’s Dirty House (for artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster) has to be seen in the flesh rather than as a photograph. The latter is all pose. The real thing is richly attuned: an experience that is contextural and tonal as well as direct and simple. Since it’s private, there is nothing to see of the interior life behind the external brick wall plastered with anti-graffiti paint to give a textured effect that unifies the whole even as it lets its rough, uneven character show through — well, nothing except the floating flat roof that hovers above the defensive screen with its flush opaque glass windows at ground floor level. It’s at night, of course, that this floating lid delivers its poetic effect.

While here, have a look at the nearby Boundary estate. Note that this location is just north of Brick Lane and the Sunday morning markets that transform this area.

This house off Brick Lane (more or less directly east of Christ’s Church) is an indicator of how the area has recently changed: cheek by jowl with Bangledeshi restaurants sits this galvanised steel and glass beast that manages to blend in surprisingly well. The lower floors are bedrooms and the top, double-height space is the living area. It’s very elegant and comes across as a rather polite English version of the houses Frank Gehry used to put up in Venice (LA).