Christopher Polly Architect presents minimalist house situated in the inner city Sydney suburb of Newtown. The immediate context is comprised of predominantly single storey attached and semi-detached residences with intermittent 2 storey dwellings and 3 to 4 storey apartment blocks. The proposal involved the complete refurbishment of an existing single storey semi-detached dwelling with the addition of an open plan volume beyond the original rear existing roof plane, to improve the physical and visual relationships to the new rear garden, while harnessing improved access to sunlight, natural ventilation and views to borrowed landscapes and sky beyond.
The retention of the original front dwelling and centrally located bathroom enabled old and new fabric to stitch and enmesh an alternating sequence of compression and expansion, enfolding a series of expressed rooms from the narrow hall and front cellular 3-room layout, to open release in a newly accommodated Living room, followed by a compressed scale shift and downward change in level via an almost secreted passage into the new heightened rear openness of a Dining, Kitchen, second Living space.
The height of the low roof served to establish a datum that scribed the alignment of all elements wrapped around the interior of the rear volume, setting the heights of the rear steel door head and sliding doors, timber board wall linings, timber board lined laundry units and new wall heights of the retained bathroom. Fixed highlight glazing finely connects these newly established bathroom wall heights with the singular ceiling plane, enclosing it from surrounding spaces while borrowing light from three directions.
Architects : Christopher Polly Architect
Photographs: Brett Boardman
