The Perch by Nicole Blair

Inventively shaped by the constraints of its suburban site, The Perch’s sculpted addition settles above an existing bungalow in Austin, Texas, delivering flexible living space for the homeowners, while preserving their beloved rear garden.

Seeking to expand their living quarters, the clients approached designer Nicole Blair to design a standalone, flexible space – a versatile addition to inhabit while they renovate their bungalow – and a place to entertain guests and enjoy leisure time on an ongoing basis. Keen to preserve the garden, the designer embraced the site’s height, conceptualising a cantilevered response that sensitively honours the bungalow’s established vernacular.

Keen to preserve the garden, the designer embraced the site’s height, conceptualising a cantilevered response that sensitively honours the bungalow’s established vernacular.

Aptly named The Perch, the addition “rests on four steel columns that pierce through the existing bungalow walls to resist lateral forces,” describes Blair. While structurally sound, this framework, craned into place to ensure minimal disruption to site, allows the building to sway gently in the wind, reaffirming its feeling of loftiness. The new form is raised just 60 centimetres above the bungalow’s roof, thoughtfully affording breathing space between the two contrasting buildings, while its elevated positioning – subject to the City of Austin’s stringent setback requirements – informed its jaunty, angular expression.

In contemplating the project’s material language, Blair turned to the site’s rusting steel elements, inspiring The Perch’s weathering steel cladding, corrugated metal roofing and custom, expanded steel stair and landing. The fine profile of the addition’s cladding playfully echoes the bungalow’s weatherboard exterior, while its diagonal grain accentuates the height and asymmetry of its roofline. Such thoughtful details elevate the architecture’s expression, from robust and agrarian to detailed and finely crafted, with the addition sitting softly among the site’s mature trees.

Such thoughtful details elevate the architecture’s expression, from robust and agrarian to detailed and finely crafted, with the addition sitting softly among the site’s mature trees.

While “materials were selected for economy, durability and efficiency,” says Blair, The Perch’s 200-square metre interior maintains a high level of detail and refinement. Pale, pre-finished tongue-and-groove pine lines the walls and raked ceilings of the main kitchen, living and dining space, accented by end-grain timber benchtops and blush-toned cabinetry – a gentle reference to the warmth of the dwelling’s weathering steel cladding. A central staircase ascends to a secluded bedroom overlooking the garden, as well as a vibrant salon designed specifically for one of the homeowners who is a hairdresser. A compact bathroom, finished with terrazzo floors and rendered walls separates the two rooms, while a veil of blush-toned cabinetry brings much-needed storage to this space. A blend of pre-finished plain and rift sawn white oak flooring runs throughout, lending warmth and tactility. Copper tapware draws in the exterior’s rusted tone, with bespoke, angular details mirroring the architecture’s dynamic, sculpted form.

Though compact in scale, thoughtfulness abounds in The Perch. Nicole Blair has embraced the opportunities of the brief with ingenuity, delivering a spirited and adaptable addition, with warmth and continuity at its core. “The Perch is a novel solution to a mundane project type,” reflects Blair. “The steel staircase, the interior stair handrail and a coatrack welded to an exposed beam at the entry are all designed to move with use, reinforcing the building’s construction and its relation to the site.”

Architecture by Nicole Blair. Landscape design by D Crain.