Blurring the lines between large indoor and outdoor areas

With smart architecture, a property’s negative elements can quickly turn into design positives. For this home, by Daniel Lomma Design, making the most of an oddly shaped site and achieving privacy from neighbours were two such factors.

The owners’ wish list for the home included optimising space on the awkward, modest site, relaxed open-plan living, and easy, seamless connections to a private outdoor living space at the rear, says house designer Daniel Lomma.

“However, this modern, two-storey family home was shaped by several factors, including council setback restrictions.”

The front facade is a balanced composition of stepped facades – meeting council bylaws and downplaying the scale of the home – and features various cladding treatments. These include plaster, powdercoated aluminium on the upper faces, and a flush panelling system on the garage door to downplay its presence.

“Plus a honeycomb, laser-cut aluminium screen provides an aesthetic feature. This screen element is also seen in other areas of the home.”

On entering the home, a turn of a corner brings guests directly into a massive open-plan living space with connected kitchen and dining area and lounge. The interiors appear to go on forever, but in reality almost half of what you see is actually an outdoor living space.

To gain privacy and make the outdoor living area suitable for year-round use, the designer created a double-height, semi-enclosed outdoor room with operable louvres that merges with the fabric of the home. The screen of the front facade is repeated on this element backed with glass, adding privacy while admitting natural light.

“Giant stacking sliders separate the indoor and open-air areas,” says Lomma. “However, with matching indoor and outdoor furniture, and floor tiles that run from indoors to out with only a change in finish, it can be hard to see where indoors ends and al fresco spaces begin.

The entertainer’s kitchen and open air kitchen play a part in blurring the lines, with one long benchtop that runs inside to out. A pocket sliding glass splashback can be drawn across the main kitchen’s rear worksurface, creating a private scullery zone behind. This area is entered directly from the garage, giving owners  an ideal discreet landing zone for shopping.

Clever spatial and material links are seen right through the interior, including between the upstairs and downstairs. As one example, a wood display unit at ground level rises up and turns into a double-sided shelving unit in the upstairs study.

“The bookcase sits in one of two open voids in the home – these areas are glassed off in the upstairs spaces to avoid heat build-up from the lower floor,” he says. “The staircase in the other void is designed in a combination of wood and steel – the wooden treads to suit one owner and the underpinning steel to avoid a vertiginous effect for the other.”

Material connections are everywhere in the home, another example being the padded fire surround in the lounge, which is repeated on the bedhead in the master bedroom. The padded material comes with functional as well as aesthetic benefit, as the softened surface helps control noise levels in what could otherwise have been an acoustically lively home.

Other features of the five-bedroom house include a lift and a swimming pool, raised to avoid the visual clutter that comes with the safety fencing needed for an in-ground pool. There is also a games room, a large master suite and a reflection pond along the side of the home.

Story by: Charles Moxham

Photography by: Silvertone Photography