2013
Long Courtyard House
- SYDNEY, NSW •
two and contains the central sculptural
steel staircase. The planning is ingenious
in allowing for two living areas – one
upstairs and the other downstairs – that
capture views from both sides. Generous
floor-to-ceiling windows also help achieve
this objective, while the grassed rear yard
extending toward the horizon makes the
experience of looking out at the Pacific
Ocean all the more sublime.
Intelligent integration of outdoor space
is also characteristic of Matt’s approach,
in order to optimize comfort and ease
within the home and elicit a higher
degree of liveability. His Long Courtyard
House, also located in Alexandria, is a fine
example of how to assertively orientate
an addition to ensure increased levels of
planning efficiency. Having been awarded
the Australian Institute of Architects’ New
South Wales chapter Emerging Architect
Prize two years prior to the project’s
completion in 2013, Matt well and truly
lived up to the industry hype (and then
some) with this project.
By reorientating the courtyard to
the side of the house facing north, Matt
disrupts a typical inner-city terrace
configuration to give each ground-level
room a garden aspect. The scheme makes
full use of the site’s width when the home
is opened up, blurring the boundary
between inside and outside and extending
the interior past the building’s concrete
envelope. In a thoughtfully considered
detail, the upper level’s cantilevered timber06 Long Courtyard House
boastsarobustmaterial
palette characterized by
timber, concrete and brick.07 A cantilevered timber box
opening to a roof garden
helps Long Courtyard
House connect to nature.08 Each ground-level room
of Long Courtyard House
hasbeenreorientatedto
provide a garden aspect.06
07