Cloaked Contrasts – SemiBold by Litera Trotta Architecture

Using a contrasted approach, SemiBold combines a dark encasing external condition with a light-filled and illuminated interior to maximise the narrow site, focusing views outward. Litera Trotta Architecture transforms an existing single-story home into a dual level family home that embraces the extents of its site, working in an ambitious brief for its young family.

In its North Bondi locale, SemiBold sits amongst a familiar sight of rowed semi-detached homes and historical terraces, yet its dark and cloaked exterior hints at something a little different within. In preserving the original presence of the home and its previous similarly painted exterior, the gable silhouetted form is extended upward and outward to enhance the overall available living area for its owners. With a young and growing family, and already having an ingrained connection to the site and surrounds, the owners wanted to embed a flexibility for adaptation over the coming chapters, while also better utilising the available space. In response, Litera Trotta Architecture has integrated a sense of order and purpose to the home through key interventions.

In contrast to the bustle of family life, the aim was to create a home of lasting calm, both a place of play when appropriate and also a place of rest.

In contrast to the bustle of family life, the aim was to create a home of lasting calm, both a place of play when appropriate and also a place of rest. Originally a three-bedroom home that sat on the one level, the overall volumes are expanded to create more of a natural hierarchy. Between the passive and active spaces, the home is given a new formality that connects to the original home while also reflecting the current owners and how they live. Culminating in a shared living, dining and kitchen zone to the rear, the space opens to the landscape. Through the use of large operable doors, this outdoor space becomes an extension of the interior, as its own outdoor room.

Wanting to carry forward the effects of the existing contrasts, the darker materiality remains and is accentuated in parts – mainly externally – while internally, the opposite is the case. A more muted tonality is used throughout as the main base, with textures adding depth to the spaces. In high traffic areas such as the kitchen, darker tones are introduced to integrate robustness needed for family life, while also tying into the exterior expression of the home. On the upper level, the entirety of the gable is used to extend the feeling of the internal heights, increasing the sense of proportion. The darker form, despite adding another level, sits recessively in place, as a less predominant element amongst the urban landscape.

A more muted tonality is used throughout as the main base, with textures adding depth to the spaces.

By expanding respectfully within the original proportions, SemiBold continues the existing narrative into the future, creating an ideal home for entertaining and for focus. Concentrating on optimising the experience of living as its core, Litera Trotta has engaged with the natural elements and opportunities of the site, ultimately enhancing the everyday.