Christopherpolly

  A new off-grid house makes geometric allusions to the clients’ love of the abstract formal qualities of modernist houses by Myron Goldfinger and Charles Gwathmey. Based on a 4m x 3.8m structural grid, the design pin-wheels a series of private and public rooms around a central courtyard to provide a modest internal floor area of 100 sqm with a low environmental footprint of only 129 sqm on the site. Pop-up roof projections at each corner amplify the pin-wheel to offer expanded volumes and varying connections to tree canopies and sky views. Matthew Fonda Aside from requisite living, dining, kitchen, and bathroom spaces, it accommodates a dedicated office, a covered entry terrace for outdoor dining, 2 bedrooms with ensuite... More

National House is a new modestly sized two-storey skinny house for a young family of four. The design makes geometric and elemental references to the neighbouring development of its immediate context while also alluding to the formal qualities of various compact housing types in Japanese, Dutch and Belgian inner urban neighbourhoods. A second two-storey structure at the rear of the site provides a garage and a flexible artist’s studio on the upper level which outwardly reflects the predominant design language of the house.   The house accommodates ground floor wet area facilities with kitchen, dining and living areas directly connected to a rear landscaped garden, while a front room can be flexibly used as an office, guest bedr... More

A new two-storey split-level house on a waterfront site cascades a series of private and public rooms in response to its steeply sloping site, landscape setting, and harbour views. It provides crafted inter-penetrations of space and light across its multiple half-levels, and offers a multi-generational model in its spatial organisation to enable room for a growing family of four with permanent accommodation for the owners’ parents.   Its formal geometry is expressed as two distinct volumes separated by an open courtyard along the northern edge, and bridged by a glazed stair circulation zone for access to light, ventilation, and divergent interior views at the centre of the house – thereby reading as a singular volume alon... More

The proposal for a young family entails a new two-storey house on an inner-suburban site. Its formal composition to the street and rear is a uniquely crafted and direct response to setback and building height plane controls. It offers a model for densification of a compact site to enable room for not only a growing family, yet a multi-generational proposition for increasingly extended stays of the owners parents. A thin front facade is extruded in section to the centre of the plan and pinched-in at this point to provide a covered second entry, expanding to a greater width at the rear for an asymmetric gable-end form inventively accommodating the client’s brief over both levels. The front half provides for a side driveway and off-stre... More

The project involves a new house and studio spaces for a sea-changing artist couple on a substantial yet narrow remnant site in the NSW south coast town of Woonona. It draws upon the typology of farmhouses that were prevalent in the area during early 19th century settlement of the town, embracing utilitarian qualities in construction methods and materials. Unlike the built pattern of the surrounding context, the proposal is comprised of a small 103 sqm plan that is organised into simply demarcated public and private zones within a low saw-tooth roof arrangement. The primary environmental sustainability initiative is in the provision of a modestly sized footprint that is responsibly small-scaled. This achieves an objective of 'compactness'... More

A crafted volume is carefully connected to the retained and refashioned rear of an original 1960’s yellow brick envelope to enact clear planning, cost and environmental values in an articulated binary composition - a cellular and private front to the street, with an open and public rear that expands to its landscape setting.The original bungalow allows the cultural value of its suburban type to be preserved within its locality, while also supporting environmental and budget outcomes. Its interior carefully configures a program of bedrooms and service spaces, with vaulted skylights carved within the original roof expanding several spaces to light and sky. A sharply folding intermediary form spatially unlocks a compressed front hall while all... More

A substantial lower ground room is inserted under the original fabric, harnessing the fall in the site towards the rear. It extends deeply beneath the existing dwelling and outwards towards the garden to transform the original dwelling in combination with the re-crafted rear of the ground floor above. Brett Boardman Photography Brett Boardman Photography Brett Boardman Photography Both levels accept a modestly-sized lightweight addition which extrapolates existing wall alignments, gutter levels and enclosing wall heights - that at once, extends and subverts existing geometries to present an interpreted mirrored slice of the original vernacular form and palette attached to the retained rear fabric. An eccentric roof form extr... More

Haines House is located in the inner city Sydney suburb of Newtown. The project provides a model for grafting a singular substantial volume to an existing single storey semi-detached dwelling while capturing a centrally retained bathroom within the new volume, enabling old and new fabric to enmesh a unique spatial sequence along the length of the dwelling counter intuitive to popular planning methods - to improve the physical and visual relationships to the new rear garden, while harnessing improved access to sunlight, natural ventilation and views to borrowed landscapes and sky beyond. The generation of the design entailed two formal strategies: 1. A clear response to place in three acts involved extrapolating the line of the rear... More

An articulated two-storey framed volume is sensitively stitched to the rear original fabric, while retaining its front Federation masonry and hipped envelope as part of its environmental, economic and planning values. It has a sectional split-level relationship to the original house that harnesses the fall of the site to the rear, enabling the cellular front plan to vertically and horizontally unfurl into a series of connected interior spaces that expand to its setting. Brett Boardman Photography Brett Boardman Photography The built form and its program resolution respond to its immediate setting and the established conditions of the original dwelling. The two-storey volume mediates the scale and massing of its larger and smaller... More

The project simply and directly extrapolates existing formal qualities in plan and section, with extension of key existing materials and finishes to retain some memory of its previous incarnation - while providing a significantly expanded series of connected interior volumes that harness access to sunlight, ventilation and views of tree canopies, sky and district beyond. The design strategy entails: 1. The insertion of a ground floor open plan kitchen, dining and living volume generated by extension of the existing envelope and ceiling and floor levels to an averaged plan footprint of a former lean-to, followed by a rear first floor addition that extrudes the previous floor plate and gable-ended pitched roof form over the new ground... More

Located within Easthaven designed by Ancher Mortlock & Murray in the late 1950’s, the project involves a comprehensive re-design of a top floor apartment by way of a two-fold approach: a. the clear delineation of the public and private domains in the plan arrangement that simultaneously enables particular spaces to flexibly borrow from, expand into or contract from, other spaces as required, to offer a variety of unique spatial configurations; b. the establishment of physical and visual connections of spaces to the terrace to enhance the amenity of, and relationships between, the living, kitchen and terrace areas, that also encompasses a link of borrowed light through the main bedroom to an internal bathroom - in unison with an over... More

The new flagship store responds to its specific urban location within the established high-end retail character of the street, providing a high quality spatial experience for the presentation of optical products that overcomes its spatial limitations and modest budget. A series of white opal resin shelves and illuminated light-box storage units float and curve around the interior of the existing glass storefront, while white lighting columns illuminate the opalescent quality of the shelves for maximum visual focus of the displayed spectacles. Other modules wrap around the interior walls of the existing shell, accommodating further programmatic requirements for the display of sunglasses & optical products and for provision of storage.... More