Annandale House by Welsh + Major Architects

If you asked most people what initial question they ought to be asked by an architect when commissioning a new home, Welsh + Major imagine it would be something along the lines of: “What kind of house would you like?” However, the Sydney-based architecture practice believe the first question to ask their clients is: “How would you like to live?”

This was precisely the starting point for this project in Annandale, which saw Welsh + Major work with an existing timber cottage by removing its unsympathetic additions and creating a beautifully crafted extension that sits behind, separated by a new light-well. A series of cunning moves have seen this home be acknowledged at a number of awards, including the 2017 Australian Institute of Architects NSW Chapter for Alterations + Additions.

“Looking back, our Clients pre-empted that question when they came to us back in 2012,” said the architects. “Their initial brief to us didn’t dwell too much on materials, cost and size – they simply talked about how they wanted to live.” The client articulated their lives as being busy, and they wanted to be able “to cope with that busyness in a relaxed way”. Words like “raw, relaxed and sophisticated” kept coming up, and Welsh + Major set out to create spaces that reflected these very qualities while enabling the desired way of living for their clients.

Surrounded by a series of warehouse building, the existing house was well and truly penned in, so the team set about giving the new home some breathing space.

“We retained the existing timber cottage, removed the unsympathetic brick and weatherboard additions and decided to set the new additions away from the back of the cottage. We inserted a new lightwell immediately behind it.” On the eastern side of the lightwell, they established three new masonry volumes which slide down the southern side of the site, each one made thinner than the next like tubes of a telescope, enabling the site to be opened up along the northern side to maximize valuable open space.

The upper level of the house holds the private spaces – the bedrooms and the bathroom, with original cottage becoming a bedroom wing for the kids. Across a bridge that traverses the lightwell sits the master suite and bathroom.

The lower level of the house accommodates the public spaces, such as the kitchen, living, dining and a study. The kitchen reaches along the south side of the site, opening out along to the long terrace, which folds down into a brick staircase connecting to the lower courtyard. A telescopic entry hall extends down toward the rear lane entry as a masonry portal lined with articulated FC panels, through which the family access the local park just beyond. This point acts as the everyday front door of the house.

The original timber cottage was painted black to the outside, with inside contrasting in white. The original hallway, lined with white regency board, frames the newer spaces beyond.

The other way to approach the house – off the laneway – utilises a more robust material treatment. Signified by a bespoke street number and gate hardware, the laneway elevation announces the main material palette of the new house – locally made sandstock bricks topped with concrete roofs. The lower courtyard is set in a matching hue of decomposed granite.

“In selecting face brick as a key material, we decided to set ourselves a limitation based on environmental concerns, of using locally made bricks, rather than some cheaper brick made overseas and shipped here by sea,” said the architects. “Consider that if the 16 biggest ships on our seas put out as much pollution as all the cars in the world, and there are around 100,000 ships out there right now in operation, it goes to show that reducing material miles can make a huge difference to our climate.”

“That decision on the bricks we used based on environmental concerns did get us thinking about the idea of an endemic house – a local house – and if such a thing can even really exist in an age where we have near instant access to the work of architects and indeed materials from across the world. I’m not sure that we stumbled upon anything in particular, but it is an interesting question, and even if it leads to our building stock becoming more environmentally responsible it’s something we’d like to investigate further.”

Internally the walls are all bagged brick and blockwork. Some are existing brick retained from the old additions, along with concrete floors that also are a mix of existing and new. An overlay of Tasmanian blackwood joinery utilises metalwork beautifully made and assembled by Kosta Engineering. Remnant sandstone is left exposed as a reminder of where you are in relation to the ground plane, as the dining room slips in underneath the existing cottage. A hidden study sits off to the side.

The kitchen is lined with smoked oak, evergreen marble and bronze mirror, and leads through to the house beyond. The kitchen roof is insulated with an aloe garden designed by Sue Barnsley Design.

It’s the lightwell that gives the house space to breathe. It has been deliberately left without a programme. In inclement weather, a retractable glazed roof can be deployed to enable all of the spaces to remain connected. Rather than separating rooms, the lightwell acts as a generous spatial ligature, an opportunity for light and shade that connects public and private zones in a way that is unexpected on such a narrow urban site.

It’s fair to say that, not only have Welsh + Major nailed the brief to deliver a robust house for a busy family that provides calm spaces for living, they’ve also managed to re-considered what really is needed in a contemporary family home.