Table of contents for Issue 132 February 2020 in Houses

This house embodies a long, fruitful collaboration between architect Matthew Woodward and owner-builder Adam Haughey. The two met years ago through friends, and have since come to work together on numerous projects. The triangle of architect-client-builder is often held together in delicate balance. When it works, and trust prevails, it is a solid thing, and the best possible foundation for a project. It is buoying when amity and understanding is cultivated between builders and architects, and this pair clearly support and challenge one another. Adam describes the house as a résumé project – and there is a lot to drink in. Matthew, meanwhile, speaks of “cinematic sublimity,” and an intention to deliver prospect and refuge, craftsmanship and robustness, serenity and playfulness. Located in Whoota on the New South Wales coast,…

Located in an unassuming street in Melbourne’s north, Harry House is a hidden addition to the rear of an existing cottage. Described by the owner as a house that is “so easy to live in,” Harry House acts as a framework that supports a family of five. What makes the house remarkable is the way that architecture practice Archier has taken a very detailed and pragmatic brief and translated it into a design that is not only highly functional but also playful and neatly resolved. The owners had a forensic understanding of how their family would live in the house and wanted their requirements to be packaged in the smallest building footprint possible. An inspection of the plan reveals that this has been accomplished. The kitchen and dining areas –…

In the backstreets of Oatlands, a small town in Tasmania’s midlands renowned for its collection of early-nineteenth-century Georgian buildings, you’ll stumble across Bozen’s Cottage. It’s a tiny sandstone house that was built for one Jane Pain in the early 1840s, who made a new home for herself in Van Diemen’s Land in her early seventies. One hundred and eighty-odd years later, with the house well-worn and buckled with time, Taylor and Hinds Architects has conserved and inlaid its structure and spaces for contemporary living, intimately engaging everyday histories of the place, building and its inhabitants. The Georgian cottage sits close to the street, with outbuildings splayed around it on a sparsely planted block. It’s a proud building with a high hipped roof giving a sense of dignity to the two…

Sydney’s Inner West has pockets of strong suburban character, with Federation and Californian bungalows lining the streets. But step through the front gate at Cooks River House and suburbia is left behind. A landscape of rocky outcrops and native plants terraces down the hill, seeming to flow right through the house to the Cooks River Foreshore. The property’s owners, Bob and Emily, have a fondness for the Blue Mountains, and wanted the architecture and landscaping to evoke the wild, natural feeling of a national park. Designed by Studio Plus Three, Cooks River House is an alteration and addition to a Federation bungalow. The front of the house faced south to the river, and a previous northern addition didn’t let in much light, so with small rooms and limited windows, the…

The clients were on the hunt for an architect to help them transform their brick box into a twenty-first-century house. They had seen the work of Those Architects and were impressed by the practice’s approach. Simon Addinall, director at the practice, said the client came to them with an initial idea for reordering the house and site. After some consultation and careful analysis of the site and difficult terrain, Those Architects flipped the client’s ideas on their heads – literally. In order to fully take advantage of the existing structure of the house, as well as the northerly aspect to the rear, an L-shaped configuration was proposed. The children’s zone would be housed in a two-storey tower at the back, the semicircular prow would become the parents’ zone and the…

Neil de la Coeur and I were immediately impressed by the group of four people who walked into our office in 2000. You know straight away when the fit is right and they quickly became our clients. June, her two daughters and her son-in-law had pooled their money to commission a house. Their quiet resolve to live as three generations together under one roof never wavered, and despite our inexperience, neither did their confidence in us. While the idea of housing an extended family isn’t new, the vast majority of Australian housing isn’t built for this purpose, so they quickly realized they needed an architect. We were as interested then as we are now in shared space and how people might live comfortably together. Neil and I are part of…

Ken Woolley’s Paddington House, completed in 1980, is the smallest of the architect’s three Sydney homes, and arguably his most romantic. It is a love letter to his second wife, Virginia Braden Woolley. Perched on a ridge in Sydney’s Paddington, looking north towards the harbour, the house marked a new beginning for Woolley, and for the inner-eastern suburb of Paddington, then enjoying a wave of gentrification as artists and other architects of note moved in from the outer garden suburbs. Virginia had found the precipitous site on a service lane, excised from a larger estate. It was Ken’s chance to test new ideas for urban living, with a small house on a steep incline. It bears no resemblance to the Victorian terraces around it. That is just part of its…

01 Calibrate colour palettes Taking their cues from textural landscape elements, the three palettes – ‘Positive Light,’ ‘Equilibrium’ (pictured) and ‘Home Grown’ – of this empowered and youthful colour library each comprise four core hues and reflect the vibrant voices of modern Australia. haymespaint.com.au 02 Theodore hardware collection Luxury architectural hardware specialist Joseph Giles designed this beautiful, tactile and practical collection. It pays homage to a historic London public house and complements modern design schemes, with hexagonal cabinet handles, lever handles and door pulls. englishtapware.com.au 03 Coast furniture collection Designed to be clean, modern and timeless, the Coast collection is inspired by travel, adventure and freedom. The Wave bed, Malibu side table and Celeste wall sconce evoke the outdoors while retaining a sumptuous feel that brings calm and balance to…

Castle Cove is one of those pockets of Sydney that only residents go to. Conceived as a sort of garden suburb around a lush country club, it’s more discreet than the adjacent peninsulas of Middle Cove and Castlecrag (famous for its Burley Griffin houses). So, by the time you have wound around the golf links, down a side street and along a long driveway to reach this off-form concrete house, by Terroir in collaboration with Pascale Gomes-McNabb Design, it feels very much like the city and suburbs of Sydney have been left behind. The curved slope into which the house nestles is an extraordinary (yet typical) harbour peninsula bush landscape – twisting angophora, rocky outcrops, screeching birds and, below, a glimmer of sparkling water. Among the huge gums sits a…

If any practice has good reason to celebrate, it’s Pinch. The London-based design studio, founded by husband and wife Russell Pinch and Oona Bannon, has officially been in business for 15 years. And what better way to commemorate the anniversary than with the launch of six products at the 2019 London Design Festival? This new furniture collection represents a coming of age for the studio and also throws the spotlight on its recently opened Ebury Street showroom. It’s somewhat of a watershed moment for Russell and Oona, who have made a name for themselves through a singular commitment to refined detailing, exquisite craftsmanship and high-end materiality, as well as an unmatched respect for the interiors their pieces will eventually occupy. “Even though we design things for different spaces, we believe…

Clovelly – like most of Sydney’s eastern beach suburbs – is a tightly packed valley huddled around the beach below. The beach itself fronts a long channel of water spearing inland, creating layers of homes all looking at each other, stacked up and up among established banksia trees. It is a great place to raise a family, but there is no space for the typical suburban dream of a backyard and swings. Instead, the community spills out onto the streets and down to the water – and, in turn, the beach lifestyle spills into the home. Surfside House by Andrew Burges Architects is home to a family of five, although this is not apparent from its tight footprint and compact gardens. The house is a conversion of a semi-detached dwelling,…

As the design and build of this secondary dwelling in Sydney’s inner-western suburb of Glebe progressed, the intended occupants changed. The initial brief asked for a separate self-contained home for the client’s grandmother that was flexible enough to be used as rental accommodation. However, the clients’ needs changed as the project developed, and they now plan to move in when their teenage children leave home. Being adaptable for different occupants is part of the versatility and appeal of secondary dwellings and small-scale living, as inner-suburban homeowners increasingly transform underutilized spaces at the rear of their properties. “The house has potential for many lives, which is the challenge and opportunity of the design,” says Monika Proepper, director of Proepper Architects. The building is located on the sixty-square-metre footprint of the existing…

As the wheel of good taste turns, various elements of the home are dragged into the spotlight. Kitchens, bathrooms, fireplaces, columns, windows, curtains, tiles, rugs, lamps, roofs and stools have all been seized by designers and reworked and redeveloped and iterated and innovated and fetishized until it becomes a little bit tiring and the next big thing minces over the horizon. One part of the home that has seemingly evaded this breathless cycle so far is the door, which is curious, given its pivotal role in defining the home as a private space. Open Door: Contemporary Makers and Designers, an exhibition at Craft Victoria curated by Julie Ewington, serves as a criticism of this bit of cultural absentmindedness. Because, after all, the door or entrance has, at various times and…