A Light Opening – Glyn by DAH Architecture

Sitting concealed behind a traditional Queenslander frontage, Glyn opens graciously to the rear to reveal a generously scaled addition that welcomes an engagement with light. DAH Architecture continues the established silhouette outward while using the opportunity to expand on the overall volume of the home, creating increased opportunities for connection both inside and out.

Preserving the original pre-war heritage of the home and its contribution to the existing streetscape plays an integral role in positioning the addition, ensuring sightlines are maintained and the overall feels undisturbed. Wanting to create an open zone where the family could gather, the addition extrudes outward to create a place for connection within, while also connecting to the surrounding landscape areas. Carrying a similar lightness as the original home, the addition continues the established principles of tone and of an attention to detail, continuing to highlight crafted elements as a key feature that binds old and new. DAHA Architecture embeds a natural warmth through the encasing materiality, as both a reflection of togetherness and to connect beyond the built form out into the garden.

Transitioning from the older parts of the home, where a consistent cloaking of white allows the heritage details to be celebrated, the new utilises timber through the introduced joinery and flooring combined with light walls and ceilings as a calming base.

Located in Coorparoo, Glyn was built and developed by MKW Construction. The architecture hides the addition from approach, as the home navigates a sideways sloping site. With the original proportions remaining, and by using the slope to an advantage, the new adds a voluminous two storeys that stretch out into the garden, meeting the inground pool. The landscape then becomes its own outdoor room, where flowing movement between the open and connected living spaces are encouraged through the large glazing and opening. Able to be stacked to one side, the sliding doors allow the threshold that separates inside and out to disappear, while rotating screens control the concentration of light within.

Where externally a lightness expresses the existing features of the home, the new sits recessively from the street and is noncompeting. Internally though, a combination of warmth and lightness comes together to create a balance between the two, much like the coming-together of the historical and the contemporary. Transitioning from the older parts of the home, where a consistent cloaking of white allows the heritage details to be celebrated, the new utilises timber through the introduced joinery and flooring combined with light walls and ceilings as a calming base. Curved gestures then soften the transitions, signalling portal type spaces and guiding the connection between zones.

Where externally a lightness expresses the existing features of the home, the new sits recessively from the street and is noncompeting.

As a soft, warm home, Glyn combines moments of organic curves with a textural expression to create a reclusive and shared series of zones. While opening and connecting from within, DAHA Architecture has created an enduring base, extending the legacy of the original.