Gadigal Land
New South Wales
This is the total reconstruction and extension of an existing cottage with alterations that exaggerate the Victorian charm of Glebe. This approach recognises that it is as important to make a street as it is to make a home.
The street level and attic spaces are made up of many small rooms that can be freely inhabited as living spaces, studies, libraries, playrooms, bedrooms or dressing rooms. This labyrinth of rooms opens to one large basement space that sits lower than the rear garden and is cut into expressed rock. Steps to the garden are part of a concrete bench that folds into a desk that then opens onto covered outdoor dining located below the driveway.
The house is strange and is full of invention. The way occupation is imagined has changed many times through design and construction and it will continue to change as the family grows and adapts.Â
Phillip designed the house in 2016 to suit our lives at that moment, with the foresight and generosity for it to grow quietly alongside us as our circumstances changed.
The house settles into a calm, almost strange harmony. It is modest yet grand, intimate yet expansive, historical yet contemporary. Spaces unfold gradually, revealing themselves with ease, feeling resolved rather than imposed.
Most importantly, the house is more than an exercise in form, function or aesthetics. It holds emotion, shaped by care, and by an architecture that adapted as our lives evolved.
Kinkfab, Special Details
Cantilever, Structural Engineer
Lymesmith, Colour Design
Cole Cochran Studio, Landscape Consultant
Northrop, Hydraulic Consultant
TEF Consulting, Traffic Consultant
Weir Phillips Heritage, Heritage Consultant