This low maintenance, contemporary four bedroom house located in Concord, Sydney, completed in May 2016, has been designed to showcase the owners’ love for concrete and to provide more space and greater amenity for their family of four. The clients were after a new contemporary house that would make better use of their existing site than their tired, red brick cottage. The clients own and operate a formwork business, which in turn has garnered them a great love and appreciation for concrete and wanted their new house to feature this throughout.

Due to past struggles and time delays with Council, the clients requested we use the 'Complying Development' approval system to expedite the process, which requires buildings to meet strict standards to ensure a fast-tracked approvals process. The process applies to construction such as new homes (up to two storeys) renovations or extensions to an existing home, development of a 'granny flat', building a swimming pool and decks. The challenge lay in designing something quite contemporary, including all items of the brief (which included keeping the existing pool), without any flourishes that would make the home non-compliant – all on a modestly sized site.

Once we understood the exact parameters of the 'Complying Development' controls, we then worked on ensuring the indoor and outdoor living spaces related well to the existing pool location, as this couldn’t look, nor function like an add-on. Due to the modest size of the site we devised the solution of enabling the indoor and outdoor areas to work seamlessly as one – and with the retractable glass roof, this space can be enjoyed as an extension of the internal living space year round.

Q. Could you highlight anything unusual or interesting about the construction of the project – including materials and techniques?
The construction of the house is predominately concrete for structure + finish. The concrete has been left exposed both internally + externally (floors, walls + ceilings) as a homage to this beautiful material. To use this amount of concrete is not usually the norm for a residential house in suburbia, but with the combination of both the right builder + client, this project has proven that concrete has a larger role to play in residential dwellings than merely an unseen slab on ground. The clients’ brief specified a relatively maintenance free house, the combination of the concrete + alucobond cladding is not only visually appealing but provides a striking house that requires little to no maintenance.

Q. Tell us a little about the client/s – who are they and what (if anything) is unique about them?
Our clients own & operate a formwork business + from this, they have developed a great love for concrete + wanted this to be the centerpiece of their new house. They have been absolutely fantastic throughout the entire process + have allowed us the creative freedom to design something that is very striking in the established streetscape.

Material Used :
1. Off Form Concrete;
2. Alucobond – Facade Cladding – Alucobond A2 – Cassette System - Solid White 16;
3. Spotted Gum Timber Screen – Boral Timber
4. Anodised Aluminium Commercial Windows – Satin Black;
5. Burnished Concrete Floors;
6. Spotted Gum Timber Floorboards – Satin finish;
7. Brodware Fixtures + Fittings – Chrome;
8. Concrete Pool Pavers – Anston Architectural;
9. Walnut Timber Veneer – Joinery – Briggs Veneer;
10. Alape – Basins – Unisono;