This modern 3-storey house in Brighton East, Australia, makes the most out the very small plot it has at disposal. On their clients’ brief, Finnis Architects designed a three-bedroom home that focuses on livability and entertainment. Although the site dimensions are small, they managed to create outdoors spaces, much appreciated by the owners, and to create a natural flow between inside and outside. The house has three floors, out of which one is excavated and the other two are above the ground. The underground floor has a garage and utility spaces, while the upper floors are dedicated to the day and night areas. The day area is strategically situated on the ground floor, so that it can blend in with the outdoors spaces situated at the same level. This smooth transition is possible thanks to the floor-to-ceiling glazed doors that slide open, thus removing all visual barriers between the indoors and the outdoors. The facades are treated differently based on the required level of privacy. The ground floor alternates concrete walls with glass transparencies, while the second floor is kept less transparent with opaque glass and wood and aluminum cladding.
The outdoors space is very important in the layout and it consists of more focal points. One of them is the small patch of lawn, very carefully landscaped. The social side is the wooden deck with the dining table and the organic shaped chairs placed around a mushroom-shaped gas heater. The third spot is the pool, a 12 meter long lap pool that lines the back wall of the garden.
In the open space of the ground floor, the big stone kitchen island dominates the whole floor. The living room is furnished with timeless design pieces such as the Le Corbusier sofas and the Arco floor lamp.
The horizontal motif of the wooden stairs is repeated by the black and white stripes on the wall of staircase coming up from the garage level. We can find the same stripes pattern on the bedroom wall, but in a cozier black, grey and gold color mix.
