FAT's landmark project tells a story of cultural optimism in millennium London

At a midpoint along Hackney Road in Bethnal Green, the Blue House stands as both artefact and expression — an emblem from early-2000s London, when architecture, art and attitude collided. Designed by Sean Griffiths under the iconoclastic collective FAT Architecture, the 2002 home reflects the spirit of ‘Cool Britannia’ and the rise of experimental design in a once working-class enclave and burgeoning creative hub.

Clad in playful blue with dollhouse crenellations, the façade disguises a remarkably adaptable interior of around 213sqm — Griffiths, who lived here with his family, calls it ‘a house within a house’. Inside, colour and craft take precedence: parquet flooring, mirrored panels and soft curves blur the boundary between structure and decoration. Dual staircases divide or connect the upper levels, allowing the home’s layout to shift from three bedrooms to five, with separate entrances for work and living. A pebbledash rooftop studio — added later by Griffiths’ new practice, Modern Architect — references seaside nostalgia through yellow trim and green steel framing.

The kitchen and garden are linked by glass doors that reveal a courtyard of ferns and tetrapanax, grounding this architectural icon in the rhythms of family life. The Blue House is on the market for £3 million with Poetic Walls and Hemingway & K.