Simple But Beautiful Brick House | Double Life House | Sydney | Breathe Architecture

This hideout is in a narrow inner-city terrace in Sydney, custom made for a dynamic duo and the double lives they both lead. Like Superman’s Secret Citadel, it is a protective cave-like fortress that immediately blocks out the hustle and bustle of the world outside. There is the sense of a calmer, quieter realm – a true place of retreat. An endless series of discovery and surprise gives a sense of seemingly limitless space, despite the modest footprint. Double Life House works with the existing and incorporates honest and unpretentious materials to maintain the home’s integrity, strength and humility. Double Life House is for two introverts living in a world of extroverts. It is an attempt to keep them sane, to protect their true identities from the outside world. It is their hideout, their lair, their fortress of solitude. A mild mannered exterior but an interior made of steel and strength. - NSW Architecture Awards 2016.....more

Linked Houses | The Cyclops | Hilversum | The Netherlands | NIO

‘The twelve houses form an integral part of a soundproof embankment along a secondary road from Diependaal, an exclusive residential district in the woods of Hilversum. Despite its inhospitable setting and the clients’ initial scepticism, the futuristic, not to say fantastic, design of the houses attracted users who bought their houses of the drawing board, several years before delivery.
Without what is in effect a screen of houses, allowing the level of ambient noise to be brought down to acceptable limits, the rest of the urban design plan for Diependaal would never have seen the light of day. The project’s congenital, altruistic handicap justified the atypical solutions eventually proposed by Nio and his associates in the face of the client’s reservations. So for example the answer to the darkness at the back of the plot was to cantilever out the living room at the first floor level. Moreover, not everyone considers the lack of a garden to be a drawback, and a terrace can be a sales argument, even in suburbia........more

Terrace House Renovation | Mary Street | Matt Gibson a+d

This renovation of a Boom Style Victorian 2–story terrace within a heritage overlay celebrates both old and new whilst marrying the periods within an integrated whole. Rather than ‘two pavilions’ this home is instead orchestrated in combination through a continuity of material and colour. The rear is intended as a contemporary interpretation of the front. Whilst retaining a strongly designated functional layout the journey from front to rear involves a progressive spatial ‘editing out’ with selective removal of walls and a break down of the Victorian containment. A central light court becomes a pivotal textural feature in the centre of the home. Full height glazing at centre & rear enable a breezeway and temperature regulator. Allocations of surface, threshold and junction are rigorously explored at the junction of old & new - the existing dwelling retains its high Victorian grandeur, the lower volume contains a more relaxed, contemporary & comfort driven approach.........more

Terraced House Renovation and Transformation | Kirribilli House | MCK

A re-occurring theme in our work, and throughout this house, is where functional aspects of this ‘machine for living’ find significance as sculptural elements in the total design.
This is articulated in detail, colour & composition, the result, a building that, through use of architectural device is legible, with a potentially enigmatic narrative and engagement that is architectural and enjoyable providing a new lease of life........more

Terrace House Renovation | George Residential | Matt Gibson a+d

This renovation to a single fronted terrace involves the storey of two pavilions, at the front a classic Victorian workers cottage and at the rear a new contemporary addition. The layout over the long narrow block involves a series of figure / ground relationships with 2 central courtyards mediating 3 built elements. The scheme is given additional resonance via level & material changes. The central mirrored courtyard acts as a powerful interstitial space & a metaphorical bridge of history between the front & rear dwelling. Decking boards run inside and outside and with concealed fold away doors confuse and blur notions of interior and exterior. Continuity of material and colour is integral to the sense of flow & movement and the tale of the site's history...........more