Contrast and Complement – Carthona House by Daniel Boddam Studio

Combining a complementary and contrasting approach, Carthona House sees the restoration and expansion of a Federation-era home as an open engagement with light. Daniel Boddam Studio combines elements of the artisanal and handmade to propose a series of spaces that breathe and bridge time.

On its generous allotment in Mosman, Carthona House is the expanding and opening up of its heritage bones to engage with both a contemporary sensibility and its site. Through a series of gestures that allow the home to breathe, an extension funnels the formality of the original home into an open and less rigid form. In a play on contrasts, the addition is elemental and raw, while the original home sits polished and ornate. It is in these differences that Daniel Boddam Studio expresses a unique interpretation of the contemporary residential condition, striking a complementary balance as the enlarged home embraces its site.

Through a series of gestures that allow the home to breathe, an extension funnels the formality of the original home into an open and less rigid form.

Delineating the old from the new is a dedicated courtyard space that allows the buildings an opportunity to breathe from one another and for the transition between them to be celebrated. Taking cues from the underlying fundamentals of the original Federation-era brick home, the new addition is conceived from a similar focus on the artisanal, through a detail-focused approach. A sense of equilibrium inspires the old and new and how they interact, where the formal enclosed elements become the counter to the open and raw. Although a stripping of ornament occurs, there is a heightened level of detailing that elevates the lower and upper floors through a sensory engagement and a tactile expression of the rituals of daily life.

While the proposed form and operable façade elements offer a dialogue and an openness with the site, encouraging the landscape to become part of the interior experience, there is another layer of contrast at play. The interior aims to embody a welcoming warmth through texture, while the exterior is cool in the minimal and restrained form as it sits on site. Regular openings allow and encourage the exterior spaces to spill into the interior, allowing natural sunlight and ventilation inward. Through its battened façade elements, the addition becomes its own lantern of sorts, glowing at time, while expressing movement at others.

A sense of equilibrium inspires the old and new and how they interact, where the formal enclosed elements become the counter to the open and raw.

Carthona House extends the previous narrative of the heritage home, bringing elements of legacy forward and reinterpreting them through a modern lens. Daniel Boddam Studio beautifully combines references to time and through a focus on craft binds them effortlessly.