Project: Gitarren House
Architects: Bijl Architecture
Location: Sydney, Australia
Area: 245 m2
Year: 2017
Photographs: Katherine Lu
Text by Bijl Architecture
Perched on a steep block with majestic harbour views, the clarity of the original Interwar cottage interiors had been muddled by decades of ad hoc alterations. Our brief was to rethink and rearticulate the flow of the whole home with its more substantial ground floor level and a renewed lower ground floor level music room and cellar cut into the incline of the steep site.
Intent on simplifying the interior scheme and opening up sight lines to the exterior, all excess partitioning has been stripped back, the roof punctuated with deep skylight wells. Large glazed sliding doors allow the home to seamlessly segue onto the revitalised deck, looking out to the view and the subtropical garden surrounds.
By simplifying the dwelling, the humble embellishments of this Walter Burley Griffin-inspired structure began to take on real grandeur: the hipped and tiled roof, the gentle sandstone arches, and the manner in which the house nestles into its surrounds.
