Lived warmth

Designed by Mark de Rozanio/Craig Steere, CSA Craig Steere Architects

From the architects:

This home was conceived as a timeless yet contemporary residence that balances bold materiality with warmth, uniting concrete, stone, metal, and timber into a tactile, enduring palette. 

Designed with openness, natural light, and passive solar strategies at its core, the architecture responds sensitively to the site and its microclimate, ensuring comfort, privacy, and a constant dialogue with the landscape. 

Its refined proportions and material choices enrich the streetscape, contributing to the evolving neighbourhood character while respecting context through setbacks and massing that reduce overshadowing and present a predominantly two-storey form to the street.

Internally, the spatial organisation offers both flexibility and adaptability. 

Children’s and adults’ zones are clearly defined, balancing independence with shared family spaces. 

Multi-functional rooms, such as a home office that can serve as a guest suite, ensure the house evolves with the family’s changing needs. 

Expansive living areas embrace natural light and maintain a seamless connection between indoors and outdoors, supported by close collaboration with the landscape designer to create layered private and public spaces that encourage engagement with the environment.

Sustainability and performance underpin the design. 

Thermal modelling informed a finely tuned passive solar strategy, while collaboration with engineers enabled the integration of a significant four-storey structure without sacrificing openness. 

The home maximises natural ventilation and daylight to reduce reliance on artificial systems, supported by solar PV with battery storage, efficient appliances, underfloor heating, and water-saving fixtures. 

Durable, low-maintenance, and locally sourced materials were selected to ensure long-term resilience, reduced upkeep, and alignment with a built-to-last philosophy.

Ultimately, the project embodies flexibility, functionality, and comfort while maintaining a refined architectural presence. 

It strengthens the cultural fabric of its neighbourhood, balancing privacy and openness, permanence and adaptability, technical performance and lived warmth.

See the bathroom in this home

Story by: Trendsideas