Allegato | mcmahon and nerlich

Allegato is a design emerging from place, a design intent not so much bold form but of overlapping narratives that intersect in a formal, elegant composition. Composed with intent, cues in the environment unravel narratives like loose threads, a continually-renewing experience of place.
The house is immersed in a verdant private cottage-garden, a response to the clients’ desire for a deeper connection to place. The colours are deep, the birdsong real, an urban biodiversity-sink.
The living room is composed inside and out of white flush-mortar lime-rich pozzolan brickwork, eucalypt-coloured cladding elements and concrete soffit. Timber-framed glazed doors slide away into the garden clear of the opening, dissolving the threshold to the terrace garden. The insitu-concrete arc light scoop extends the gaze vertically, capturing the sky. A second arc in brick fluidly navigates the connection between old and new, rich-brown-spotted gum pergolas frame façade openings, archetypal elements in the flagstone terrace.