Intuitively Instilling Calmness – DD House by Bokey Grant Architects
DD House’s striking, almost monolithic form announces its presence to the surrounding neighbourhood. Even from up the hill, near the local train station, it emerges out from a nest of roof shingles and a palette of coastal swatches. Yet whilst visually it stands out, the house simultaneously embraces the lifestyle of the New South Wales South Coast, encouraging its inhabitants to laze in bed and stare out the window to the ocean or to lounge on the terrace where the ridgeline forms an intimate horizon. It feels made for relaxing – a quiet hedonism..
Upon entering the house and heading up the stairs into the living area, an idyllic comfort greets you. Windows and glass doors wrap the elevated ground floor, opening up the dining, kitchen and living areas to the expansive landscape beyond. At the same time, the solid balustrade that wraps the house on the eastern and northern sides trims the neighbouring houses from the view, instead framing only the canopy and escarpment. As a result, the lush garden beds planted around the house appear to join with the trees in the background, forming an almost seamless leafy valley that runs right up to the house.
There is a considerable investment in architectural and material composition that masterfully edits and plays with the local context. The house’s soft, white textures are amplified by the green hues outside, while the atmosphere of the interior is constructed from more than just a good view. The solid balustrade wall, the partially-recessed windows and doors, and the setting in of the line of enclosure to form an awning all combine to suggest an expansive interior. The rooms easily incorporate the balcony as a continuous space rather than as a separate one, blurring the line between inside and out to celebrate an outdoor lifestyle and take advantage of its comfortable coastal climate.
On the ground floor, the dining, kitchen and living rooms are all connected in a linear arrangement, with the kitchen positioned in the middle. Bokey Grant employs a similar strategy to Donovan Hill’s well known D House, utilising the kitchen bench as an object to organise the space. This free-standing joinery unit provides bench space and storage, acting as an island to revolve around. The joinery itself sits on small timber legs, craftily hollowed out to run the electrical cabling required for kitchen appliances, giving the impression of free-floating furniture rather than a built-in unit. The island is a beautifully designed object, and its presence orchestrates the ground floor.
Subtle cues articulate the difference between the three spaces, intending to avoid the shortfalls of the open plan. Bokey Grant worked with the clients to achieve all the positives of an open plan while designing out the negatives, ensuring each space has the connectivity internally and beyond the walls. “The aim was to balance this openness against enclosure and intimacy often lacking in a traditional open plan,” says Bokey Grant Principal Jeffrey Bokey-Grant. Walls increase in thickness at the thresholds to give a soft definition to the room – like it has been “carved from a mass,” Jeffrey reflects – and at times there is a change of floor material or ceiling height. Alongside the exposed ceiling joints, which also hide the lighting, these strategies help each space to feel like a defined room even with the openness of the connection between them.
Narrow in plan, the house is set back considerably from the northern side boundary. Effectively, this reorients the back half of the house to look out towards the northern escarpment and take advantage of the location. The plan kinks in the middle to reflect this, amplifying the view even further. Sitting at the back of the house, the dining room steps up to a rounded terrace. A service corridor runs the length of the house on the southern side, tidily positioning the staircase, main bath and storage facilities against the neighbouring property.
Moving upstairs, the introverted atmosphere of the first floor contrasts with the openness of the ground floor. Large, expansive vistas are traded for small, curated glimpses of the landscape. Small openings punctuate each room, offering poetic glimpses to picturesque scenes. Most prominently, in the upper storey we see a repeated gesture in the house – the cutting, clipping and curation of the context so that the building engages with its natural setting as much as possible.
In the master bedroom, a timber joinery panel opens up to reveal the ocean horizon through the neighbouring tree canopy, framed by an American oak surround. Here, the iconic V that gives the house’s façade so much character is revealed to be both a precise framing of the hillside and a way of providing privacy from light pollution. Then, in the generous master ensuite, a circular skylight brings a tube of light down into the shower, beautifully illuminating the finger tiles that line its curved walls.
The two remaining bedrooms are similarly restrained. Each has a window to the north; for one, the joinery unit peels back to open up the view; in the other, the window is angled inwards to capture the crest. A large sliding door closes off the back bedroom, cutting through the low bench and creating a study at the top of the stairs from which a little, square pop-out window observes the morning sun.
The materials of the house change between the ground and first floor. The continuation of the white walls and ceiling is met by the warm tones of the timber flooring and joinery, creating a laid back, comforting environment. On the exterior, a similar distinction is made, with the roughcast render of the ground floor transitioning into the smooth white finish of the upper storey. Jeff explains that it is these subtle distinctions that “give the home solidity and mass.”
From the outside, Bokey Grant’s keen interest in sculpture is evident, though the sculptural ambition of the house is a direct result of its life rather than an exercise in architectural formalism or showmanship. Indeed, over time it will cede to the landscape – as Jeff explains, “it was designed to be enveloped in dense garden concealing the home. It is a house that will mature with age as its garden develops.” The house takes the daily lives and desires of the inhabitants and expresses them through architectural form.
The customised openings for the windows illustrate such intentions. Rather than establish a precise rhythm and abstraction on the façade, they punctuate the clean, monolithic top floor with signs and suggestions of the life inside. These slight misalignments and differences in window detailing are somewhat contradictory to the monolithic form of the upper storey. Yet this decision to place windows from the interior point of view rather than the exterior seems indicative of Bokey Grant’s overall position – there is a greater desire to construct an atmosphere for the inhabitant than to create an architectural object.
The façade evokes a playful character. Whilst reminiscent of the experimental façades of John Hejduk, particularly the Kreuzberg Tower, DD House is not an animalistic caricature but intends to be read as a sculptural volume, with openings that are either incisions or projections dedicated to constructing moments and glimpses between inside and out. The characteristic V exists to frame the natural landscape from the master bedroom rather than celebrate historical architectural references.
Four circular columns embedded into the balustrade wall of the ground floor terrace provide the structural support for the first-floor balcony and tie the floating volume to the level below. A perforated screen opening adorns the front façade like a veil, balancing its composition. Such an animated façade naturally stands out from its neighbours, yet the brilliance of the work is in the subtle translation of a lifestyle into architecture.
Intuitively, the house instils calmness. The lightness of its interior and the proliferating greenery invites a certain serenity. Modest in size and in budget, DD House is nonetheless luxurious in atmosphere.
