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Architects: Matthew Woodward Architecture
- Area: 439 m²
- Year: 2018
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Photographs:Murray Fredericks Photography
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Manufacturers: FritsJurgens, Vitrocsa, Graham day, Halliday+Baillie, Viabizzuno
Text description provided by the architects. A play of geography, geometry, and light, the Crescent House is a singular, undulating sculpture that weaves through lush, coastal gardens and crescendoes with enchanting views across Sydney Harbour. The clients had long awaited to build their dream home for their young family. They chose the site for the northern aspect, panoramic vistas and direct access to Sydney Harbour foreshore.
The brief was to create a future-ready home that captured various opportunities to entertain, relax and rest amongst gardens and harbor views. The house appears as an unfolding white form, edged by garden courtyards and green roofs. The interplay of sharp lines, refined detail and radial curves creates a sense of sculptural ease and subtle purity as it engages with the site and harbor foreshore.
Once entered, the house is experienced as a sequence of volumes through mass, concrete, and whiteness. Playful plasticity of the form provides thoughtful connections across various spaces and landscaped areas as you transverse through to the living spaces. Skylights, openings, and voids dramatize light and shadow that highlight the refined selection of materials; predominantly concrete, brass and rendered white masonry. The muted palette of materials is a canvas for greenery and artwork to be displayed encouraging life and character within.
Landscape works by Myles Baldwin Design compliment the internal arrangement of space with Mediterranean generosity. Most notably, a sloped landscape garden constructed of corten steel provides a lush backdrop for the living spaces, while also physically delineating the separation between the private and public program.
Passive solar heating and cooling is inherent within the design through thoughtful site responsive planning, considered location of openings, external shading devices, and thermal mass. A rooftop solar array assists to offset electricity demand and rainwater is harvested for use throughout the house and around the site.
The haptic energizing of the senses across the home and gardens highlight the connection to the broader context of Sydney Harbour. This is complemented by the clients’ imperative for a functional and technologically advanced home. Needless to say, this is a house to be experienced.
