A Return to Origins – Cut and Morph House by Apto & Best Architects

Returning to its original worker’s cottage proportions and scale, Cut and Morph House sees a realignment with its origins and provision for its coming chapters. Apto & Best Architects draws from an existing embedded narrative to carefully sculpt an open and connected series of volumes on site.

Sitting amongst a richly diverse tapestry of residential typologies in Sydney’s west of Croydon, Cut and Morph House was inherited as the product of numerous additions over time. The countless additions to the original saw a misconfiguring of the original façade, culminating in a disconnect from the streetscape. In a considered correcting exercise, the home now responds to its location and context, drawing from its original narrative as inspiration. As a pushing and pulling of volumes and surface planes, the creation of an open plan allows the new brief and layout to take form behind the original brick frontage and engage with the site instead through deliberate orientation, access to the natural and embedded functionality. Apto & Best Architects focuses on the social, economic and environmental sustainability of the home, while binding the old with the new.

From the initial reinstating of purpose and stripping back to reveal the home’s original character, the new volume to the rear opens generously under its skillion roof to encourage an open embrace of the surrounds.

Cut and Morph House is both a restoration and extension effort. From the initial reinstating of purpose and stripping back to reveal the home’s original character, the new volume to the rear opens generously under its skillion roof to encourage an open embrace of the surrounds. Fusing the formality of the original floor plan and front rooms with an open and connected series of living spaces to the rear, there is an element of journey as one moves through the home. From approach, to the home’s left, sits a darkened form that both clearly acts as an extension of the overall, but through its sedate nature feels intentionally recessive.

As the exterior form is pushed and pulled to formally respond to the brief of the home, courtyards and other relief spaces are created, bringing natural light and garden moments into the home. The overall form becomes a series of negative and positive spaces, all interconnecting and supporting one another. While the rear opens generously, its form and proportion remain connected to the original home to ensure an effortless sense of flow between the existing and the new. Pushing out into the courtyard adjacent space, the island bench of the kitchen acts as a gesture that connects both inside and out.

Pushing out into the courtyard adjacent space, the island bench of the kitchen acts as a gesture that connects both inside and out.

Through a binding and light palette, Cut and Morph House brings a lightness and openness to the original home. Apto & Best Architects has created a contemporary and considered anchoring of the site’s past in place.