We believe that houses must be designed to elevate our experience of everyday life. This project seeks to achieve this elevation through the creation of a spatially distinctive house that’s embedded into the landscape, providing a space of privacy and reflection.
Access from the street is the Long Garden through which the house is slowly revealed.
The house has been conceived as a timber box cantilevered over recycled concrete walls. At ground level, the concrete walls define the internal living areas and an external courtyard garden.
The first floor level timber boxes the private areas of the house, which overhang the concrete walls below. Each space is positioned to maximize its connection to the surroundings, framing views of the city and treetops.
Where possible, materials were left in as close to their raw state as possible. The timber cladding is clear-finished and the concrete left raw. We look forward to seeing the house weather over time and reflect its age and the consequences of being lived in.
The outcome is a carefully crafted exploration of materials and restraint in order to create a beautiful environment for living. It is a house that demonstrates ‘big’ is not always best and that, through design, space can be created for life.