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OR VIEW ALL PROJECTSOR GO BACK TO SEARCH RESULTSOR VIEW ALLPROJECTS BY ARCHITECT BKH ARCHITECTSHOUSE PROJECTS1996 PROJECTSPROJECTS IN SYDNEYPROJECTS PHOTOGRAPHED BY SHARRIN REES |
On the doorstep of a colonial sandstone cottage in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra, evening visitors encounter an eerie portent of their entry into a strange realm. As they approach the Victorian entrance, they find themselves suddenly bathed in a beam of glaring light, rising from a lamp beneath their feet.
Replacing assumptions of a dingy and elderly hallway is a gleaming, futuristic tunnel which draws the eye right through the house to glimpse a Chinese elm in the minimal back courtyard. This sense of linear progress is dramatised by the underlit glass floor – illuminated by strings of festoon lamps – and supported by the simple cubic treatment of silver ash walls and ceilings in the foreground, which dissolve to frames of glass further on. Here, Palladian axiality is meeting Mies' immateriality.
the house itself had a classical plan of one room on each side of the vaguely central hall – plus lean-tos added later at the back. Although Halliday and his team demolished and rebuilt most of the "rotting" structure, they retained this centrality in the floor plan
Beyond the front door, the interior planning is unassailably logical and arrestingly graphic. The prime gesture is the central passage, dramatically threading together three distinct pavilions which occupy (with their intermediate spaces) about 13 metres of the 17 metre-long site
The front pavilion masquerades as the historic part of the house but its two rooms are reclad with new panelling and joinery of plywood with silver ash veneer. Matching sliding screens open to the hallway and replace curtains on the front windows, which face south to the street. Sliding doors are also installed in the north walls of both chambers to give either privacy from the new glazed living zones or direct access to the pond which wraps around three sides of the central pavilion (separating all three structures).
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