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So this is a home that feels very, very calm. It's a space that feels very tranquil, very restful,
and very much in contrast to the liveliness and energy
that defines and characterizes living in the city.
My name is Jennifer McMaster and I'm one of the directors and founders of Trias
and this is our Hidden Garden House.
So the house is located in Darlinghurst which is just on the fringe of Sydney's CBD
and hyde park, and it's a neighbourhood characterized by its vibrancy and liveliness.
You've got these small back laneways and streets that are filled with tiny terrace houses,
a legacy of the working cottages of the past.
So as we enter into the house, the first room that you walk into is the living space,
and then stepping up slightly we end up in the dining room which is defined by
a long narrow seat that wraps in an L to form, a step up to the kitchen space and
then stepping up onto our sandstone step we come into the new L-shaped extension
which is where we had our day bed and our kitchen wrapping around the new courtyard garden.
Then turning around and heading back upstairs, we've got the open plan space
of the bathroom and the bedroom which are divided by our two joinery blocks, and tucked
in behind each of those blocks is the bed and the shower, and within one of them is the WC as well.
Opening out onto both of those rooms is a glimpse over Darlinghurst to one
side and then from the bathroom a view out over our green roof.
The garden in Hidden Garden House is the heart of the home, so it's the place that you see as
soon as you open the front door and it makes you feel like you're home and that holds a single
Japanese maple tree. So it's this tall vertical element within an otherwise quite small footprint.
So our clients Laura and Amon are a young creative couple who both work in the design industries,
and they're really passionate about simplicity and quality in design.
So we were really fortunate to work with a pair who are such strong champions of good design,
like we are, so the question became what can we take away and what can we subtract
to make something really elegant and timeless.
At our first design meeting we knew Laura was a ceramicist and so we suggested to her that she
might want to make some tiles for the project, and in the end laura ended up making the terracotta
floor tiles that now line the kitchen, and also the white tiles that rim the light well and bounce
all of that beautiful natural light into the home, in addition to that Laura also tried her hand at
making hooks and door hardware for the house, so that all of these amazing grass pools greet you
every time you open a door, and she designed a lot of the furniture for the house as well.
The way that we achieved such a strong sense of
warmth in this space was very much through our material selections,
so looking around the house we can see the texture and history and tactility of bagged brickwork
and they're the walls that make up the old terrace and carry all of that character.
The other thing that really contributes to that feeling of warmth is all the timber,
so we've got a lot of Victorian ash in this project on the floors and throughout the joinery,
so you get this, this warmth from a natural material and again tactility and softness that
comes from something that is derived from nature. The last thing that makes the house feel really
warm are a lot of the small details, so things like the pendant lights,
and the brass finishes that we have through the tapware, and the kitchen bench top.
These little details that define and
almost make more beautiful those actions of the every day, of sitting down for a meal,
or taking a shower at night. So you have these touch points within the design that
really dignify and highlight these different domestic rituals which is really beautiful.
The thing that our team are most proud of looking around this project is definitely
the collaborative spirit that we brought to this home, so we've got such a wonderful
relationship with our clients and we really got to learn a lot working with them in terms of
understanding their vision and translating that into work of architecture that we were all
really proud of and that represents our skills and loves as designers.
So I think the proudest thing is of course the end product, but also the process that took us, there
was the work of a lot of hands but everyone poured their love
and time and passion to this house and you can see it in everything from
the details through to the execution of the overall design ambition and vision,
and we're really proud of our team at the end of the day, we have an amazing group
of people working on this house and everyone's handy-work is really visible in the final result.
My favourite part of the house is definitely the garden and the beautiful courtyard that sits in
the heart of the house, it's something that we get to watch evolve and change every time we come back
to see the house and visit our beautiful clients. So the tree would have grown a little bit as it
makes its way up towards the light, the moss is settling in on all the sandstone steppers,
so the garden feels like it's been there for an incredibly long time and feels really
settled and peaceful and calm. The gardens are definitely the thing that we love the most.
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