This single level home perfectly meets the clients’ specific requirements for a healthy, effortlessly comfortable home that responds to the extended family’s current and future needs. This has been achieved by thoughtful spatial planning and solving the challenge of delivering universal accessibility on a sloping site. The home was constructed with quality prefabricated components and sits well in its suburb’s context. Biophilic curves soften the building form. A considered use of Australian hardwood cladding provides a visually protective wrapping at the intersection with the street. The sinuous curves are echoed in details big and small, a consistent design element that continues inside the home. Built-in joinery is elegantly crafted, serving to draw the visitor through the home. Living spaces are well connected to the garden spaces, where carefully considered planting are beginning to grow into the spaces. A central sitting room sits apart, a calming refuge with a soaring ceiling to accommodate south-facing clerestory windows. These provide for spacious views of the sky and bring in gentle, consistent light. This generous volume gives a sense of grandeur. The outdoor area has a clear roof with retractable shade over for solar protection while the laser cut screen controls for both sun and privacy from the neighbours whose plans for a second storey addition were announced during our design phase. The home has met the Passivhaus Plus standard, which is a guarantee of quality, health and comfort as well as ongoing energy efficiency. Our practice values reuse and retrofit of existing buildings but it is not always possible. This site was formerly occupied by a dark, defunct home riddled with asbestos that was objectively beyond remediation. Knock-down-rebuild was the only viable way to meet the client brief.

Photography by Paul Worsley