A big part was always about this slow revealing of space, it's similar to walking along in your
bushwalk so there's this sense of discovery and delight. Castlecrag is North of Sydney and it's
originally the land of the Cameraigal people. It was originally master planned by Marion Mahoney
and Walter Burley Griffin, they really wanted to respect the ridgeline, the trees, the water,
the sense of bush, it's really provided a lot of inspiration for the architecture.
I'm Dan North, I'm Katherine Downie and we're Downie North and welcome
to Castlecrag Courtyard. The site gave us this incredible prospect,
you know almost 180° views but then it was really important that you can also retreat,
we wanted to encourage this sort of spiral circulation that meant you were always shifting
relative to the courtyard and as a result of that you're always getting these new views.
The house sits over three levels, making a strong connection to the garden was important at the
front, so you can just slide those doors back to the rumpus room and just run out. Having the
kitchen as a central space was another important thing, that you could be in the kitchen and
be able to see everything going on because the kitchen is generally the hub of family life.
Upon arrival you walk down this bush path that has been beautifully landscaped by Emily Simpson,
the ground floor contains principal living areas, kitchen, the dining, the family areas, there's a
a timber batten screen that really attenuates the view, just getting these glimpses through
the courtyard into the living room. Beyond to the West we have the service spaces of the kitchen,
pantry, little powder room, that's tucked underneath but then we have an L-shaped stair
that takes us from the ground level down into the basement into a long corridor to a series
of rooms that face South, we have the laundry, the steam room, and lower ground bathroom,
there's this very lovely light that actually comes through a cedar batten screen into the corridor.
Upstairs we have another little internal garden,, so that every room gets an aspect.
The kids rooms and the parents' room are separated, there's a bridge that connects
the two, giving Mum and Dad that sort of quieter retreat space within the house.
There was a a tiny little parcel of backyard that never got used and by putting the pool down there
it really does encourage you to make that journey. We love this idea that the pool might feel a bit
like a swimming hole, there's no chlorine, you have vegetation that essentially filters the
water, so it's a very gentle thing. The client when they came to us said they wanted concrete,
that was the first material he said, and that was almost it, that gave us that base to start to draw
upon the materiality. When you look at a eucalypt it looks green but there's so much red in it,
so finding those base notes in the surrounding trees and bringing that into the house as well
was something that we were always thinking about. Isaac and me have three young kids,
they didn't want surfaces that were going to be easily damaged and also they didn't want paint,
the site told us that we wanted sandstone and timber so you have all these very raw,
very primal materials that are used and expressed to their true state. I think tallowood is such a
rich warm colour, it always goes so beautifully against concrete. There's honed block terazzo,
all of those materials were selected to bounce as much of the Southern light through the
spaces, on this main level, this has a a lot more porosity, we've got these huge expanses of glass,
the burnished concrete floors, Oregon board ceilings, the balzano stone and
then as we make our way upstairs that's probably the greatest shift in quality.
There's a wide range of options we have to control the degree inside and outside,
we're quite playful in the way that we've done that with the monsoon eaves,
the tilt-up screens and then there's a series of sliding screens all over
the house, that allow you to open the house right up or close it right down.
To be able to come back here and know that all of the time that's spent and the challenges,
it's absolutely been worth it, you know it's just incredibly rewarding. You have
a family here that loves their home, and the dogs, and the dogs,
it's lovely to see that the the dogs have really taken to the house as well, and we've come
here and everyone's just relaxing and calm and happy, that's the thing that makes me happiest.