In keeping with the unassuming character and intent of the original weatherboard cottage, this project is modest in scale and budget.
The brief is to invert the existing enclosed, divided internal rooms, and create generous spaces closely connected to the external environment, on a narrow built-up site.
Cornices and roses of the existing ceilings serve as ornamentation and define rooms. This approach is appropriated for the new space, where rhythmic variations in the depths of the rafters provide figuration and delineation to the kitchen, dining and living, giving scale and suggesting edges to the spaces.
The architecture is distilled to its essentials - the portal structure is the expression, the structural bracing is the internal plywood lining, the same plywood is the joinery.
The structure, cladding and joinery is Australian plantation-grown Hoop Pine, acting as a unifying texture.
A full-length skylight on the north edge of the space brings in abundant daylight, which is filtered and diffused by the exposed rafters, changing through the course of the day, and amplified by the undulating depths of the rafters.
The resultant space is warm and textured, with diffuse natural light and dynamic shadows that transform, animate and give character to the space. The skylight doubles as an indoor hanging garden, with greenery draped above or hung below the structure. The experience of the house is of the tracks of sunlight and shadow moving across the space.