PROJECTS

Parsley House

DETAILS

Arch / Design:		Tobias Partners (web)
Type:		House
Year:		2008
Location:		Sydney
Photographer:		Justin Alexander (web)

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PROJECTS BY ARCHITECT TOBIAS PARTNERS

PROJECTS PHOTOGRAPHED BY JUSTIN ALEXANDER

This residence is located in Vaucluse, Sydney. It backs onto Parsley Bay Reserve, a leafy park at the harbour’s edge treasured as a hidden gem by locals. The site is a rectangular block orientated along a north/south axis, falling from south to north.

The project required the demolition of an existing, modified, brick cottage to make way for a new two-storey dwelling.

The clients brief was that the new house should be bold and architecturally strong, yet also comfortable and inviting. The house should have spaces suited to entertaining, offering easy flow from inside to out. Additionally the clients wanted to retain a traditional garden, with a sizeable lawn and flowerbeds alongside a 10m pool and spa.

Above all, the house was to be uniquely tailored to fit their needs and the further details of their brief. This architecturally bold house is individually tailored to the clients whose brief was for a comfortable family home that was inviting to guests, with a good flow between indoor and outdoor spaces.

The cubic form of the new house explores carving a void from a solid mass - expressed as it is with concrete floor and roof slabs extending to the building envelope and steel-framed windows between the slabs. It references 18th century battlement structures, and exploits the thermal advantages of masonry for passive solar design.

The house adopts a solid masonry form. Floor and roof slabs extend to the perimeter of the building, capping the cube like forms. Fenestration is expressed as full height voids in walls, as bespoke steel framed windows span vertically between the expressed concrete slabs. Cool concrete floors, and benchtops sit alongside teak cabinetry and custom-made bronze ironmongery

Outside, a deep red was used colour the concrete - like those of the Australian outback.

Inside, the interior palette of polished concrete floors (and bench-tops), custom-made joinery and bespoke steelwork accentuates the distilled geometry.

Every detail in the house was painstakingly resolved, from bronze integrated door handles, screens and handrails, to fine steel angle door stops and window frames. No junction of elements was left to chance, with careful consideration given to how all such elements would meet or juxtapose