Small Big House

Our brief for the renovation of this coastal weekender was to maintain the vernacular scale and character of this small cottage while creating enough space to accommodate a family that swells to 30 people at Christmas.

Our strategy to increase the size of the house while maintaining a small weekender character grew out of the observation that the east and west side of the house are perceived at 2 completely different scales - From the east it has a very small scale cottage like presence onto the street, from the west it can only be viewed from the much larger theatre of Pittwater. All new additional works were orchestrated to maintain the small scale character of the house’s street presence while placing any new bulk towards the Pittwater side.

Internally the floor plan was developed to create a range of spaces that felt comfortable when occupied by a couple but had elements, such as sleeping nooks, that allowed the house to have the capacity to sleep much greater numbers while maintaining a modest scale.