“An existing 1940’s worker’s cottage has been given new life and extended. The original cottage was stripped-back to its timber frame, jarrah floor and front verandah. Only subtle changes in plan were made to the cottage so that its integrity was maintained. It has been treated on its merits as thin, modest and direct. There is beauty in the cottage’s basic quality.

The new extension houses a breakfast room, second living room, main bedroom, w.c. and outdoor bathroom. The extension is best described as a series of cave-like chambers made from recycled brickwork. It feels weighty and its surfaces rustic. Openings have no ‘frame’ and as such appear primitive and hollowed-out of the building’s mass. Light from above enters in a carefully orchestrated sequence giving the interior a soft glow and a sense of slow discovery. The final room in the sequence – the main bedroom – is an intense moment of climax. This room is more compressed than the others and is coloured in shades of light blue, indigo and deep bottle-green using lime-based paints and natural pigments. This house feels like a secret world in the suburbs.”