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Architects: Teatum+Teatum
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Photographs:Lyndon Douglas
Text description provided by the architects. Using the left over spaces of the city, Hidden House is formed between existing buildings. The house makes an opportunity of its dislocation from the street. It turns its back to the city and responds to its location by creating an architecture that is internal and intimate.
The house is organised over two levels and structured around a seven metre high internal light well. Living spaces interface across the central light well, allowing bedrooms and living areas to overlap and connect. This interface between spaces seeks the opportunity for programmes to infect one another. The connection to the exterior is formed through high level skylights that bring daylight into the bedrooms and the central light well. By removing external views the sense of interior is reinforced, creating intimacy and a focus on light and materiality.
The rear elevation, a black shining surface, embedded with silica carbide particles acts like a mask in that it engages the viewer without expressing or revealing the space behind. The steel butterfly doors are laser cut to reflect the pattern of rain on a cold window. Internally, the laser cut pattern allows shards of light to extend into the hidden spaces of the ground floor interior. Hidden House provides a way for the city to create more housing on existing sites providing unique spaces at low cost.
