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Narrow Alleyway Becomes Two Story Family Home

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In this house extension in Paddington, Queensland, Australian architecture firm Cox Rayner Architects set out to demonstrate that ‘left-over’ spaces in inner cities can become gainfully employed.

xA small bridge is a library connecting it to kitchen and living room, and beyond to stacked bedrooms and a stair to a roof deck.

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The three metre wide space has been cleverly configured into a home for a family with two children.

In the central light-filled atrium, the stairs also act as seating.

Viewed straight up, you can see all the moving parts that make this privacy possible.

to an approach to private house design that facilitates sanctuary and engagement of the community as desired.

They are one of an array of details rethinking the typology of the private house, no matter how small, as both sanctuary and communal participant.

The forward portion is a single level study room for architectural practice, or if later to be used by a new owner, a potential small office. Privacy from close placed neighbours is gained by the myriad of ‘left-over’ spaces in inner cities, such as disused easements or parking lots.

The project recycles an existing small cottage as a piece of the house to which extensions in front and back are grafted in 3 metre and 5 metre wide portions respectively.

In the three metre wide frontage to the old cottage is a new study designed through its portals and window boxes to engage the street.

A series of inserted window boxes, a side door to an easement and sliding downstairs doors each play a role in participation in or closure off from other spaces or to neighbours and passers-by

This space manages the climate of the subtropics with layers of perforated iron screens which alternatively project and open up to the external conditions. The mobile screens are intrinsic The screens slide or swing out to engage the neighbours when desired and to mediate different solar positions.

Where the site slightly opens up behind the cottage to an open, roofed and screened staircase atrium forms the primary social space.a series of iron screens whose perforations for light are the patterns of peeling paint of weatherboards on one of the neighbouring cottages.