PROJECTS
Castlecrag Classic
;)
DETAILS
|
Stephen Collins Design
(web)
|
||
|
Stephen Collins Design
(email)
|
||
| Maincorp Constructions | ||
| House | ||
| 2002 | ||
| Sydney | ||
| Brett Boardman (web) |
SEARCH
What began as a commission to renovate, soon became interior designer Stephen Collins first opportunity to design a house in its entirety.
He had renovated the nearby 1950s home of one of the clients' children, and on completion --was asked to do theirs, "but we soon realised that the house that was here didn't equate to the land value, and the clients agreed it would be better if we started again", says Collins.
For the new house, set on a high, triangular site overlooking several fingers of Sydney's Middle Harbour, Collins pondered the choices of a building that appeared to grow from the exposed, weathered rock, or something tenuous and lightweight, that looks as if it's about to take flight. In the end, he chose a combination of the two, anchoring the house firmly with a soild stone surface at the base, making the subsequent storeys of the building progressively lighter in material and form.
The masonry foundation walls - all that remained of the house that had stood on the block for four decades - were clad in basalt quarried from Yass, with hidden mortar joints to give the appearance of drystone walls. Above this base rise rendered masonry walls painted a deep, brooding purple, relieved by banks of glass doors to the south taking in the view, and to the east, looking onto the rear courtyard. Smaller, frameless windows punctuate the public, westerly face of the building, while the top storey, housing the master bedroom, dressing room and a generous bathroom, is almost entirely transparent - glass on three sides, the fourth shielded with panels of silvery zinc. "I came back to the idea of classicism," explains Coffins. "You see a lot of this in American buildings where there's a heavy base, a medium-weight middle storey, and a lightweight one on top,"
|
|
