This low maintenance, contemporary four bedroom house located in Concord, Sydney, completed in May
2016, has been designed to showcase the owners’ love for concrete and to provide more space and greater
amenity for their family of four.
The clients were after a new contemporary house that would make better use of their existing site than their
tired, red brick cottage. The clients own and operate a formwork business, which in turn has garnered them a
great love and appreciation for concrete and wanted their new house to feature this throughout.
Due to past struggles and time delays with Council, the clients requested we use the 'Complying Development'
approval system to expedite the process, which requires buildings to meet strict standards to ensure a fasttracked
approvals process. The process applies to construction such as new homes (up to two storeys)
renovations or extensions to an existing home, development of a 'granny flat', building a swimming pool and
decks.
The challenge lay in designing something quite contemporary, including all items of the brief (which included
keeping the existing pool), without any flourishes that would make the home non-compliant – all on a modestly
sized site.
Once we understood the exact parameters of the 'Complying Development' controls, we then worked on
ensuring the indoor and outdoor living spaces related well to the existing pool location, as this couldn’t look,
nor function like an add-on. Due to the modest size of the site we devised the solution of enabling the indoor
and outdoor areas to work seamlessly as one – and with the retractable glass roof, this space can be enjoyed
as an extension of the internal living space year round.
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