"One hot autumn day, when I was peeling back the subfloor, I looked across the library to the living room and onto De Beauvoir Square. The windows spoke back, the space began to relax and breathe and I said, ‘Through the Looking Glass’." With these words, interior designer Irenie Cossey, founder of Irenie Studio, tapped into the conceptual doorway into OntheSq—a restored 1840s Grade II-listed Neo Jacobean house in East London’s De Beauvoir Town that now stands as the city’s 'first residential design house', 'a playful reimagining of what a period home could be'.

Imbued with surprises and a clear reverence for place, OntheSq transforms a once-abandoned home into a co-created design experience—a ‘living wonderland’ guided by an intended interplay of scale, illusion and transformations while echoing the whimsical logic and layered symbolism of the beloved Lewis Carroll novels, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871). Collaboration colours the project with aplomb, with Cossey inviting an international web of designers, craftspeople and artists to respond to the house itself through their bespoke offerings.

On the Square, enjoying the duality of a development company and a marketing platform, allows artists, makers and designers to showcase their work within distinctive spaces. As described in the project's official statement, it is “the brainchild of Irenie Cossey…[it] is the natural progression of Irenie Studio. [...] Irenie and her team are committed to the idea of ‘Co-Creation’ with their clients, rather than simply offering design advice."

From the start, the house itself was treated as the client, which gave Irenie ‘clues’ along the way. “It had been [unoccupied] for three years, the roof was leaking and rotten and there was no planning permission for an extension,” Cossey tells STIR. Yet it was these very challenges—the structure’s listed status, its decaying charm—that offered a roadmap for interventions in the residential architecture and its subsequent restoration. “The distinctive features of the Neo-Jacobean design gave me so many opportunities. We didn’t remove any period features—instead, we reinterpreted them,” she says.

The home’s former curving staircase remains, while its original windows, shutters and architraves were lovingly restored. Two Grade II-listed cupboards were relined for functionality. The curves of doorframes and fireplaces were echoed and softened throughout, while new cornicing was intentionally stopped short at the windows, “to allow the windows to be the heroes in each room,” according to Cossey, who is also a design consultant and curator. Even the green door outside was preserved and repositioned in the garden as a curious relic, concealing a fully equipped surprise bar—‘a cabinet of curiosities’ painted in Curiouser and Curiouser green, matched precisely to the original RAL shade.

This approach of layering, reframing and storytelling guided the entire residential design’s restoration gestures. Floors tiled with Mutina’s Time collection (sourced through DOMUS and designed by BarberOsgerby) play with proportions, finishes and directions inside, articulating OntheSq’s “scale, illusion and thresholds,” says Cossey. Shower spaces double the worn textures as anti-slip. In the library, twin arches replace the fireplace—a nod to Alice’s moment of shrinking to enter her surreal world. A modern extension has been added to the four-storey structure, opening up its lantern-roofed kitchen on the ground floor and creating “a threshold between old and new,” as the press release puts it.

“I see everything through frames and framing moments,” Cossey reflects. “I hope I have captured the imagination and the physical spaces as vitrines for people to enjoy.”

OntheSq (with Studio Dera as its executive architects) revels as a bricolage of co-creation: the home was not simply filled—it was furnished with intention, shaped through deep collaborations with a vibrant community of designers and craftspeople from London, Ireland, and beyond, whose practices align with themes of time, transformation and material tactility. “Back in Cromwell Place in 2023, I met Rio [Kobayashi] through Flavia [Brändle],” says Cossey, who is originally from Dublin and is now based in the UK. “Rio then took over the house as a backdrop for Frieze 2023. That opened the floodgates. Bethan Laura Wood, Martino Gamper, The Tweed Project—it all grew organically from there…the house allowed its journey to unfold at a lovely pace and to bring the right people in,” she continues.

Connecting the past and the present, for instance, is sculptural furniture designer Rio Kobayashi’s Through the Looking Glass Table, which reuses salvaged doors and shelving from the house itself and combines them with new materials such as cherry wood, glass and steel. With the new furniture design, Kobayashi manages to ‘capture the house’s embedded energy’. In the same vein, textile artist and designer Tomoyo Tsurumi’s installation stitches together the home’s old curtains with vibrant Kvadrat fabric, embedding a textile meditation on time and memory within the interior design. “Rio and Tomoyo were given remainders of the house and asked to respond in their own narrative,” Cossey explains. Meanwhile, Arne and Ellis Cunningham of Stow Studio restored and reupholstered five Robin Day chairs (1952) in Kvadrat fabrics, while maintaining their unique, acquired patina, letting their worn beauty "continue their story" within the space.

Cossey’s own contribution is equally personal: SLEEP, a prototype bed system made from ash, designed to evolve as one grows, from twin singles to a king. “It’s the ‘bed for life’. Each bed is stained to suit the room it lives in and it requires minimal fittings,” she shares. Quite a few elements in the home are also a nod to Cossey’s Irish roots, something she considers dear in each of her projects.

OntheSq sparked a collaboration with The Tweed Project as well, which, alongside Larusi Rugs, Eva the Weaver, Tsurumi, Irenie Studio and Ally Capellino, crafted a collection of blankets using deadstock and residue waste material. “Ally even made a waxed cotton backpack to carry the blanket—a brilliant twist!” recalls Cossey, who is no stranger to bringing to life design endeavours through collaborations—she has conceived designs with leading studios and firms such as Barber Osgerby, Universal Design Studio and Skidmore Owings and Merrill and consulted for high quality brands such as Mutina, Vitra, British Airways and more.

Additionally, Michael Murphy (Muck), a master craftsman and furniture maker, proffers handcrafted pieces for the ‘living wonderland’, honouring the home’s period features with a modern interpretation through his series of kitchenware. He also collaborated with London-based Polish designer Kasia Kempa and Cossey on The Upside Down Chair, fashioned from a fallen oak tree, which also doubles up as a shelf. In conjunction is a series unveiled by J Hill’s Standard, whose latest collection of glass vessels is inspired by glassware discovered on-site during excavations.

This assemblage of designers was not strategically curated, but rather ‘discovered’. “There was no pressure to deliver a certain look or feel. The house allowed its journey to unfold. It led the way,” the interior designer tells STIR. From a chance meeting with Tsurumi at a Japanese hairdresser’s studio, to spontaneous tea with curator Dee Morgan that led to an Irish artist showcase, OntheSq took shape and thrived on what Cossey calls “the right conversations falling on the right lamps.”

“This project unites the past 25 years of my design practice,” affirms Cossey, whether working in collaboration, platforming artists, or co-creating with the client, in this case, the house itself. What has emerged is not merely a beautifully restored home, but a design-led fable articulated through choreographed illusions of space—an abode packed with personality that tells its story, through its every material, threshold and surprise.

Throughout the dwelling, stories whisper through the product designs, surfaces, shadows, scales, patterns and colours galore. The curated intervention is at once a celebration of materiality and a love letter to layered, collaborative storytelling—a unique model for design presentation rooted in intimacy, emotion and wonders at every turn, every corner—as Alice once said, “Curiouser and curiouser!”

In the six weeks leading up to its market debut, OntheSq hosted a curated programme of private gatherings and public open days, offering a glimpse into Irenie Studio’s distinctive approach to interiors and narrative-driven design, alongside work by London- and Ireland-based makers. Throughout April and May, OntheSq will continue to serve as an event space and a backdrop for photoshoots.