A Considered Reimagining – Mosman House II by Tribe Studio Architects

Working within the existing bounding envelope on site, Mosman House II is the reimagining of the inherited into the contemporary, relevant and responsive. Tribe Studio Architects brings a considered refinement to sculpt the resulting home as an open and connected series of spaces, embedded in place.

Mosman House II continues an extended and familiar lineage on site, becoming the family home of the client who grew up within the same wall. Within Sydney’s north shores, the fortunate siting on the elevated and sloping site in Mosman affords generous and enviable views from multiple locations, stretching out over Middle Harbour and Chinaman’s Beach. Over time, a series of amendments saw the original home changed and melded to suit the evolving everyday rituals. As a result, the home was in need of an overarching sense of cohesion, bringing the new gestures together with considered purpose. Tribe Studio Architects worked within the existing envelope to create a newly deliberate home that speaks to a contemporary way of life, while also responding primarily to context.

A series of robust and low maintenance materials comprise the contemporary palette, ensuring an appropriate front to the coastal climatic conditions needed for the home to continue to endure.

Constructed by Barry Built, together with landscapes by Fieldwork Associates, Mosman House II is inspired firstly by its place. The surrounding context and modest sense of scale and appropriateness to a medium residential fabric needed to be retained and working within the existing was the most fitting solution. The insertion of a new landscaped level appears as a concrete form of its own, sweeping across the building façade and enforcing a sense of weightedness to the build. The addition adds an elevated garden area, while also changing and elevating the architectural language of the home, without the need to expand outward. The interior is split vertically with the more passive retreat spaces located on the upper floors, and the lower level opens to the elements as an ease of transition between inside and out.

A series of robust and low maintenance materials comprise the contemporary palette, ensuring an appropriate front to the coastal climatic conditions needed for the home to continue to endure. Black charred timber elements add texture and an insertion of the natural, while in their dark tones align with a clean and primarily monochromatic tonality. The mix of raw and natural with the more attuned and refined elements ensures the needed robustness of a family home is elevated through detailing.

The mix of raw and natural with the more attuned and refined elements ensures the needed robustness of a family home is elevated through detailing.

Through a combining of the natural and the enduring, Mosman House II is endowed an elongated life. Tribe Studio Architects sustainably focuses on reuse and repurposing over demolition to extend the home’s legacy.