Project: Carthona House
Architects: Daniel Boddan Studio
Build: To The Mil
Decoration: Carolina Hughes Elliott
Location: Mosman, NSW, Australia
Completed 2020
Photo Credits: Pablo Veiga
A ‘complement by contrast’ approach was developed as the design strategy for the project. The traditional qualities of Federation-style frontage are boldly counterbalanced by the striking blackened silhouette of the extension.
The original house is a heritage listed item of local significance with Mosman Council and remains the dominant form to the street, whilst the new extension is an alluringly and distinctive separate element.
A courtyard separates the two elements providing breathing space between the old and new.
The planning decisions resolved around maximising the clients’ lifestyles, maintaining a sense of comfort, ease conducive to family life, while employing a sympathetic approach that respects the historic legacy of the house.
Informed by Brazilian modernist architecture with which the client has a deep connection, the extension has been designed as a ‘crafted lantern’. The facades open and close as breathable skins allowing for sunlight or shadows, privacy or connection.
Open volumes and voids allow dappled, dancing light to be cast throughout the interior, tethering the experience of home to natural circadian rhythms; a poetic and resonant quality.
Internally, the principal living spaces embrace a warm and relaxed tone. Luxe and hand-crafted materials come together with expressed bagged brick walls and charred timber cladding offset by the crisp articulation of a honed marble and matte lacquered cabinetry.
Carthona House turns a modern lens to the extension of a Federation home in Mosman, constructing an artisanal and elemental sensibility that speaks to the rituals of Australian living.
