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In its inner-city namesake suburb, Glebe House sits elevated above a sandstone cliff overlooking the Sydney skyline. Chenchow Little Architects demolished the pre-existing dilapidated cottage and replaced it with a compact and contemporary two-storey four-bedroom home for a family of five. The small site is overlooked by a Victorian terrace to the south, turned toward a 1980s public housing to the north.
Maxing out available space within considerable site constraints and stringent planning controls was paramount. Chenchow Little have shaped the home’s irregular angled facades by the offset of minimum setback controls for each frontage, while the sight-lines from neighbouring windows limit the height of the building. The resulting wedged form and flat roof replicate the geometry of the triangular block. The exterior of the home is articulated with arched openings, referencing the similar shapes seen on the entrance porch of the neighbouring Victorian terrace house.
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Arched windows on the main elevation align with arched cut-outs in the floor plate, creating three-dimensional internal voids within the interior. The double-height voids, in turn, maximise light through to the centre of the house, adding to the sense of space. An arresting spiral staircase follows the curved form of the central internal void and further offsets the angled perimeter.
Rather than view surrounding properties, the scale and positioning of the building allow the inhabitants to look out onto greenery, creating a deceptive impression of being more tucked away in nature than the suburban reality belies.
The house is clad both internally and externally with white painted vertical timber boarding, which replicates the materiality of the traditional cottages in the area. The large arched windows also utilise vertical timber mullions for structural support, reinforcing the verticality and rhythm of the cladding while helping to abstract the facades of the home.
A covered outdoor space to the rear continues the same materiality of the interior, though with arched windows that remain unglazed and vertical mullions designed to provide support for climbing plants.
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https://www.yellowtrace.com.au/chenchow-little-glebe-house-australian-architecture/