Hidden Garden House by Trias

Conventional wisdom has it that when faced with a small site, maximising the footprint to free up every scrap of space is key to giving the impression of a larger environment. Yet during the renovation of Hidden Garden House, an 1890s terrace in Sydney’s Darlinghurst, Trias founder and principal Jennifer McMaster chose instead to reduce the functional floor space of the mere 45-square-metre site, annexing a significant central portion of its ground floor for the creation of an atrium-like garden that effectively delineates the kitchen at the rear from the combined dining and living space to the front.

“We’re quite familiar with working with small spaces,” says McMaster of the architectural device, which she attributes to the traditional design of Japanese temples. “You can always make a space feel bigger by reaching it out further, borrowing nearby views. It’s a very Japanese concept, the borrowed landscape, where we take a vignette or a glimpse of greenery to give the impression that a space is larger than it actually is.” The resulting effect is impressive. In relinquishing a portion of their functional living space for a small garden, owners Laura and Aman introduce light and greenery into their home that not only tricks the eye and provides airflow but also untangles the floor plan of a series of closed rooms common in narrow terraces. “It’s a departure from what the ordinary Sydney terrace does, and what we think is achieved by wrapping the spaces around the garden is that, in a day-to-day sense, you’re actually living across the whole site, where one person can be in the front living room and another in the kitchen, and you’re quite far apart though still connected,” adds McMaster.

“You can always make a space feel bigger by reaching it out further, borrowing nearby views. It’s a very Japanese concept, the borrowed landscape, where we take a vignette or a glimpse of greenery to give the impression that a space is larger than it actually is.”

It is the smallest garden courtyard that Trias has built, here populated by Kirsty Kendall of Studio Rewild with a simple combination of Australian natives and a single Japanese maple tree. “To have that relief in the centre, which is often quite dark in this type of home that’s encroached on all sides by other buildings, certainly adds to the feeling of space.”

The garden addition is not the only nod to Japanese design in the Hidden Garden House. The wabi-sabi world view became a guiding principle in Laura and Aman’s brief for Trias and this can be seen in the distinctive hand-hewn quality of the home, which was not only charming but necessary in keeping the project to budget.

“We knew that Laura is a ceramicist, and while she’d never made tiles before, she agreed to give it a go and basically started prototyping from that moment forward,” says McMaster of Laura’s contribution to the project, which included the white tiles that surround the atrium, seamlessly marrying up with the rendered brickwork and additionally serving to bounce light into the home. A terracotta floor tile, meanwhile, merges tonally with floorboards and timber joinery. “Laura would come to every meeting with different samples of what she’d been playing with – different grog mixes and glaze finishes – and we’d just line them up to figure out what looked best side by side and take them on site to check them in the light. She was a champion of the process, experimenting and testing until we got it right, and we learned a lot doing it.”

In relinquishing a portion of their functional living space for a small garden, owners Laura and Aman introduce light and greenery into their home that not only tricks the eye and provides airflow but also untangles the floor plan of a series of closed rooms common in narrow terraces.

A renovation like this calls for a client who would commit to the vision but, as McMaster says of Laura and Aman, “this is what peace and tranquillity for them looks like – a house that is very considered, that embraces a slower pace, where things like meals and resting and bathing are done with a level of care and attention.” It is for this reason that, beyond leaving the exterior shell relatively untouched in accordance with council heritage restrictions, Trias sought to significantly simplify the interior layout, sacrificing the number of individual rooms for larger indoor and outdoor spaces.

From the staircase along the eastern boundary – enclosing a laundry and storage – the upper floor was converted into one large space housing the single bedroom along with a bathroom. Spaces are zoned by handmade timber-lined blocks – by the project’s lead builder Stefan Zandt – instead of walls. “They understood that these were sacrifices worth making, and they absolutely love the house now, but it’s a really rare thing in a client to have somebody who is willing to lose, say, a bedroom to gain a garden,” says McMaster.

“To have that relief in the centre, which is often quite dark in this type of home that’s encroached on all sides by other buildings, certainly adds to the feeling of space.”

Despite the limitations on obvious environmentally friendly fixtures, such as solar panels – which are prohibited within the heritage context – thoughtful consideration was placed around material finishes. The sandstone steps, for example, were salvaged from a nearby demolition, while the bathroom tiles were wastage sourced from Artedomus.

Hidden Garden House is, above all, an embodiment of its owners’ values, emblematic of their commitment to simple design. “It’s just a really calm space,” offers McMaster. “Serene and peacefully private, it is this lovely, enveloping structure that immediately sets the tone and atmosphere when you enter it and mirrors the character of its owners.”

Architecture by Trias. Build and joinery by Zandt Building. Landscape design by Studio Rewild. Engineering by SDA Structures.