--- title: "Cloud House: colour, curves, joyous and a rather Grand Design" description: The Cloud House on Grand Designs is pink, arched and impossible to ignore. Five design ideas worth borrowing, and why a home is allowed some personality. image: https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hubfs/Colour%20Pop%20Cloud%20House/Cloud%20House%20%7C%20London%20%7C%20Grand%20Designs%20%7C%20Everything%20But%20the%20Kitchen%20SInk.png --- [Skip to content](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/grand-designs-cloud-house-a-home-with-personality#main-content) [![Everything But | Good Design. Decoded.](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/footer%20website%20wordmark%20blk.png?width=1045&height=298&name=footer%20website%20wordmark%20blk.png "Everything But | Good Design. Decoded.")](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/home) - [IN](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/in) - [OUT](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/out) - [SHOP THE EDIT](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/the-edit) - [IN](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/in) - [OUT](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/out) - [SHOP THE EDIT](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/the-edit) # Cloud House: colour, curves, joyous and a rather Grand Design [Everything But](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/author/everything-but) [IN /ɪn/ adv.](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/tag/in-ɪn-adv) ![The Cloud House | Grand Designs | Peter Morris Architects | Everything But the Kitchen Sinl](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hubfs/Colour%20Pop%20Cloud%20House/Cloud%20House%20%7C%20London%20%7C%20Grand%20Designs%20%7C%20Everything%20But%20the%20Kitchen%20SInk.png) Some houses behave themselves. This one absolutely does not. ### Colour is structural Not decoration added at the end, but part of the building from the start. ### Curves change everything Before you even register the pink, the arches have changed the mood. ### Joy counts Not something you often hear about houses. By gosh, you should. ## The idea London has never been particularly good at behaving itself. A Georgian terrace beside a brutalist estate. A Victorian pub tucked under a railway line. A medieval church reflected in a glass office block. Somehow, against all reasonable planning logic, it works. And then there is Cloud House. Pale pink. Copious arches. Duck-egg metalwork. A rooftop bath. In Gospel Oak? Of course it is. But the thing that makes Cloud House special is not really the pink. It is the commitment behind it. Architect Peter Morris spent the best part of a decade taking this house from an idea on paper to a home for his family. Designing your own house is one thing. Living through the planning, detailing, building, compromise, cost and sheer stamina required to see every decision through is quite another. And this was never a project designed to disappear quietly into the street. Every arch, opening, floor finish and piece of metalwork has been considered. The house has been drawn around the family who live in it, but it also gives something back to the neighbourhood outside. That matters. Architecture can be private, but houses are also part of a street. We all live with what other people build. Cloud House has become one of those buildings people notice. They stop. They look up. They photograph it. It has added something unmistakable to this little corner of north London. I should declare an interest here. I know Pete, and I have been hearing about this house for many years via my other half, also an architect in London. So seeing it finally complete, seeing his family living in it, seeing people respond to it, and now seeing it revealed during Open House and on Grand Designs, is genuinely lovely. Architects spend their careers creating places for other people. Very few get the chance to build the place they have imagined for themselves. Fewer still get to do it with this much conviction. And beneath all the colour, arches and Instagram appeal, here are the details I want to steal. Watch THE CLOUd HOUSE on GraND DEsigns 23 September 2026 Grand Designs, Channel 4 ## The details 01 ### Don’t save colour until the end We have spent years being told that a serious house should be white, stone, greige or, if everyone is feeling particularly reckless, sage. Cloud House makes a much happier argument. Its pink and duck-egg palette owes something to Miami, but the important thing is that the colour was never treated as decoration. It was part of the architecture from the start. Pale blue floors. Pink and white stripes. Bright kitchen cabinetry. Terrazzo. Painted metalwork. Nobody reached the end and thought: ‘Perhaps a colourful cushion?’ The confidence comes from commitment. Steal this If you are going to use colour, give it a proper job. Paint the cabinet. Choose the coloured floor. Buy the red table. One clear decision will always feel stronger than seventeen nervous little accents. 02 ### A curve can do a lot Cloud House is full of arches. Windows. Doors. Ceilings. Openings. And, at the top, those magnificent curves. They are not simply decorative: the shapes pick up on the church opposite and repeat through the building until they become its language. That is what makes the house feel coherent rather than merely colourful. And curves do something useful to a space. They soften it. A square room with square furniture and square windows can start looking suspiciously like a spreadsheet. Same for a garden. Put something round into it and suddenly everybody relaxes. Steal this You do not need to rebuild the house. Try a round table. A curved chair. An arched mirror. A scalloped edge. Warning: one curve may not be enough. 03 ### Build for the people who actually live there This may be the biggest lesson in the whole house. Cloud House is not an abstract architectural exercise. It is a family home. That distinction matters. The spaces were designed around how the family lives, moves, gathers and spends time together. The architecture is expressive, but it is not expression for its own sake. The house has personality because the people in it do. That is perhaps what makes the project feel generous rather than showy. It is bold, but also deeply personal. Steal this Design for real life first. Where do you sit in the morning? Where does everyone end up in the evening? Which door is always open? The best rooms usually start there. 04 ### A house can give something back to the street One of the loveliest things about Cloud House is that its personality does not stop at the front door. It sits opposite an eccentric Victorian church on a street already full of architectural character, and instead of pretending none of that exists, it joins the conversation. It borrows the arch. It responds to the setting. Then it turns the idea into something entirely its own. That feels very London. This city works because buildings from completely different periods live side by side and, at their best, make each other more interesting. Cloud House adds another chapter. Steal this Look beyond the room. A view, a neighbouring building, a tree, the brick outside the window or the shape of the street can all become part of the design. 05 ### Joy is a function We are exceptionally sensible about houses. Storage. Circulation. Durability. Resale. Where the bins go. All important. But there is another question that rarely makes the spreadsheet. Does it make you happy? Pete wanted Cloud House to bring joy and delight to the neighbourhood. That is not an insignificant ambition. Ten years later, people stop to look at it. Children notice it. Passers-by photograph it. A building has changed the experience of walking down the street. That counts. Particularly on a wet Tuesday in February. Steal this Put one thing in your home that exists because it makes you happy. That is a function too. [![Colour Pop Cloud House A Grand Design Everything But Grid Edit](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Colour%20Pop%20Cloud%20House/Colour%20Pop%20Cloud%20House%20A%20Grand%20Design%20Everything%20But%20Grid%20Edit.png?width=960&height=320&name=Colour%20Pop%20Cloud%20House%20A%20Grand%20Design%20Everything%20But%20Grid%20Edit.png)](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/the-colour-pop-edit) Ready for some colour? Nine pieces with something to say. Grown-up colour, properly chosen. [SHOP THE COLOUR POP EDIT →](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/the-colour-pop-edit) Why it works The temptation with a house like this is to think the answer is colour. It is not. It is conviction. One idea has been carried all the way through. The arches repeat. The colours repeat. The curves repeat. The details belong to the same world. Nothing feels incidental. That is hard to do, and even harder over the best part of ten years. Cloud House is not striking because somebody had one bold idea. It is striking because Pete kept hold of that idea long enough to build it. ## Open House, then Grand Designs There is something rather fitting about Cloud House welcoming hundreds of the design-curious as part of London’s Open House Festival before appearing on Grand Designs. Open House celebrates the buildings that make the city interesting. Grand Designs celebrates the design, perseverance and extraordinary amount of work required to make those buildings exist in the first place. Cloud House belongs beautifully in both. One lets us see the finished home. The other lets us understand what it took to get there. ## The verdict Cloud House is easy to photograph. Pink house. Big arches. Cloud roof. Done. But that misses the better story. This is a house someone spent almost a decade imagining, arguing for, drawing, refining and building for his family. And in doing so, he created something for the street too. Something distinctive. Something optimistic. Something that makes people look up. London needs buildings like that. Not because every house should be pink. Not because every house needs arches. But because cities are better when somebody occasionally has the nerve to make something genuinely their own. Cloud House is joyful, ambitious and completely sure of itself. That is a huge achievement. And a lovely place to call home. [![Peter Morris Architects logo: black arched pma lettering in a pink circle](https://petermorrisarchitects.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/PMA-logo-pink-on-white-Background-Removed.png)](https://petermorrisarchitects.com/) The architect Peter Morris Architects Create Your Dream Home Together [petermorrisarchitects.com](https://petermorrisarchitects.com/) | [peter@petermorrisarchitects.com](mailto:peter@petermorrisarchitects.com) LIKE THIS? Get The Edit in your inbox ### THE EDIT / EVERY OTHER THURSDAY ## Questions ### What is the Cloud House on Grand Designs? A pair of pale pink, arch-covered semi-detached houses in Gospel Oak, north London, designed by Peter Morris Architects. The name comes from the cloud-shaped roof on the east side. ### Who designed the Cloud House? Architect Peter Morris, who designed and built it as his own family home alongside a second house on the same site. It is the rare project where the architect drew every detail and then moved in. ### How do you add colour to a neutral room and keep it grown up? Keep the base calm and choose rich, considered shades: tomato red, cobalt, butter yellow, blush, burgundy, ochre. One strong piece in a quiet room reads as confidence. ### Do arches and curves work in a small room? They often work better. A round table gains circulation space in a tight corner, and a curved mirror or scalloped edge softens a boxy room without taking a single centimetre. ### Where is the Cloud House? Vicars Road in Gospel Oak, Camden, a street that already has a Grade I-listed Victorian church and a former hall with a stone castle frontage. Eccentric company, happily met.   ## Related Articles [![Montecito Garden Style: How to Get the Look in the UK | Everything But](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/London%20Terraced%20Homes%20in%20Mirror%20Reflection.png?width=750&name=London%20Terraced%20Homes%20in%20Mirror%20Reflection.png)](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/the-montecito-garden-style) ## [Montecito Garden Style in the UK](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/the-montecito-garden-style) When a heatwave arrives, the garden stops being somewhere you glance at from a window. [Read More](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/the-montecito-garden-style) [![Brutalist Mid Century Agent's Lair | Bond By Design | Everything But the Kitchen Sink ](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/AIGenerated%20Image%20with%20Subtle%20Light%20Adjustment.png?width=750&name=AIGenerated%20Image%20with%20Subtle%20Light%20Adjustment.png)](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/where-will-the-new-bond-live) ## [Bond, By Design: Where will the new Bond live?](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/where-will-the-new-bond-live) Forget the car. I want to see the house. [Read More](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/where-will-the-new-bond-live) [![](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/My%20After%20Shaker%20Kitchen%20%7C%20Everything%20But%20the%20Kitchen%20Sink%20%7C%20Landscape.png?width=750&name=My%20After%20Shaker%20Kitchen%20%7C%20Everything%20But%20the%20Kitchen%20Sink%20%7C%20Landscape.png)](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/ictorian-kitchen-without-side-return) ## [This Victorian kitchen got better, not bigger](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/ictorian-kitchen-without-side-return) My north-facing Victorian kitchen needed more space and more light. The standard answer was a side... [Read More](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/ictorian-kitchen-without-side-return) [Blog](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog) | [About](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/about)  | [Partners](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/partnerships)| [Terms & Conditions](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/terms)  |  [Privacy & Cookies](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/privacy) [![Everything But | Logo | Everything But The Kitchen Sink](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/footer%20website%20wordmark%20blk.png?width=193&height=55&name=footer%20website%20wordmark%20blk.png "Everything But | Logo | Everything But The Kitchen Sink")](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk) --- [Follow us on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/everythingbut.theedit) [Follow us on Pinterest](https://uk.pinterest.com/everythingbut_theedit/) Good Design. Decoded. © 2026 All rights reserved ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Everything But", "url" : "https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/author/everything-but" }, "dateModified" : "2026-09-23T19:15:26.064Z", "datePublished" : "2026-09-23T19:13:20.000Z", "headline" : "Cloud House: colour, curves, joyous and a rather Grand Design", "image" : [ "https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hubfs/Colour%20Pop%20Cloud%20House/Cloud%20House%20%7C%20London%20%7C%20Grand%20Designs%20%7C%20Everything%20But%20the%20Kitchen%20SInk.png" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/grand-designs-cloud-house-a-home-with-personality", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hubfs/footer%20website%20wordmark%20blk-1.png" } } } ```