My name's Madeleine Blanchfield, and I'm the Director of Madeleine Blanchfield Architects.
The house we're in at the moment is in Bronte. That's where I live with my family
and it's somewhere that's really special because it's so close to the city but
it's two minutes from the beach. My husband and my son are fanatical surfers
and I think the lifestyle is really appealing because it's so connected to nature.
Bronte is very special to me because it feels more like a little beachside forest enclave.
Treehouse is on Bronte Road and it's facing north into Bronte Gully so, because of the elevation
of the site, we're actually looking into the tops of the trees in the Gully which is quite unusual.
We approach design as quite a scientific undertaking. We're very interested in light
and the quality of space and that comes first. It's the sun and shading
and sustainable principles that are built into buildings are very important to us,
so we look at all of that before we get carried away with forms or sculptural elements.
The really tricky thing about the site is it's so steep, so the garden at the back is
two floors above or three floors above the street. So, we knew that we wanted to live
on the top floor because when you're in here you feel like you're in the treetops and that's
one of the most beautiful things about the house to me is what you're looking out at,
so it's very much about the connection to nature and not feeling like you're in the suburbs.
I'm a big believer that a house should open up
as you enter it and continue to give and ideally a house will have little moments of awe
and wonder as you move through, so it's not just all in your face in a first moment.
So the house is entered from the lower level where the garage is
and there's a concrete staircase taking you up to the front door. On the way, we've got
very carefully thought through gardens and a pond. Water kind of bouncing off the ceiling,
and then when you enter the front door you met with the spiral staircase.
When they come up it's a real, I guess journey is a nice way of putting it
The house is quite crisp and refined and we wanted the garden to be just really the opposite,
be very natural and untrimmed. Succulents are fantastic and we wanted things that would flow
over the concrete and complement the grey tones. The little boys room has a pond out
the front and faces north so there's sun bouncing around on the water the whole time and he's a real
water boy, and the little girl has a kind of courtyard forest with a crazy tree in it and
that just really suits her personality. So to me engaging with the space outside of their room
was much more meaningful than kind of painting it a colour. The bedrooms all actually open off the
stair void but there's no view into the beds, it's carefully thought through so that you just see
curved walls and the experience on the way means that the bedroom is more private and cocooned.
The bathroom is something you walk through to get
to the bedroom and it sits in a little shrouded screen.
I think not considering bathrooms as a space that you go in to wash, but as something that actually
could contribute to the rest of the house and a sense of layering is something that i find
really interesting. One of my favourite things in the house really is just the light and the way it
changes throughout the day, and i think there's just always a sense of joy when you walk up the
stairs and whether it's sunrise or sunset you really feel connected to nature and its energy.
When it came to interiors, the materials in the house are very paired back and there aren't many
so it's mostly concrete and pale timber. We really wanted to maintain a sense of lightness and
calm throughout the house so minimising the number of materials is a nice way to do that,
and I also think when you have few materials you focus more on how they're detailed so you
tend to look again and again and see a little bit more each time. We've got terracotta in
the bathroom floor and I actually love that bathroom it's such a nice space.
When you stand on the floor it's kind of like standing on sand as opposed to being on tiles.
The timber floor and the terracotta really blend beautifully and it just avoids having
that jarring sense of walking from one room into another which I think is really nice.
Artificial lighting is something that I'm really passionate about because a lot of
your experience of a house is at night and with light you can play with space. You can
push light onto surfaces and completely change the way a room feels depending on whether the
light's falling on the outer edges or on the ceiling or the floor, combining the different
surfaces at different times and it's really been fun to play with that in our own house. I think it
reinforces just how important it is and how much difference it makes to the way a space feels.
I'd say that the house is very experiential
and it's all about light and change and mood, more so than architectural features.
It may not be apparent to someone the first time they come, but the more you look,
the more there is to see and it's just that sense of thoughtfulness that i think
permeates a house, even if you're not aware of exactly why you're feeling that way.