An Authentic Oasis – Hidden Garden House by TRIAS

Limited but not daunted by size and heritage restrictions, TRIAS has successfully maximised the visual space of a small terrace in Sydney’s inner east. As its name rightfully suggests, Hidden Garden House is the ultimate oasis, drawing on Japanese design principles to prioritise the garden at every turn.

Conventional wisdom has it that when faced with a small site, maximising the footprint so as to free up every scrap of space is key to giving the impression of a larger environment. Yet during the recent renovation of this 1890s terrace in Darlinghurst, TRIAS Founder and Principal Jennifer McMaster chose instead to reduce the functional floorspace of the mere 45-square metre site, annexing a significant central portion of its ground floor for the creation of an atrium-like garden that effectively delineates the kitchen at the rear from the combined dining and living space to the front.

As its name rightfully suggests, Hidden Garden House is the ultimate oasis, drawing on Japanese design principles to prioritise the garden at every turn.

“We’re quite familiar with working with small spaces, and this is something we often do in our work,” explains Jennifer of the architectural device, which she attributes to the traditional design of Japanese temples. “You can always make a space feel bigger by reaching it out further, borrowing nearby views. It’s a very Japanese concept, the borrowed landscape, where we take a vignette or a glimpse of greenery to give the impression that a space is larger than it actually is.”

The resultant effect is impressive. In relinquishing a portion of their functional living space for a small garden, owners Laura and Aman introduce light and greenery into their home that not only tricks the eye and provides airflow but also untangles the floor plan of a series of closed rooms common in narrow terraces. “It’s a departure from what the ordinary Sydney terrace does, and what we think is achieved by wrapping the spaces around the garden is that, in a day-to-day sense, you’re actually living across the whole site, where one person can be in the front living room and another in the kitchen, and you’re quite far apart though still connected,” Jennifer adds.

Laura and Aman prioritise simplicity and quality in their lives, and the wabi-sabi world view became a guiding principle in their renovation brief for TRIAS.

It is the smallest garden courtyard that TRIAS has built, here populated by Kirsty Kendall of Studio Rewild with a simple combination of Australian natives and a single Japanese maple tree, but it serves to demonstrate how effective integrating a garden into a small space really is. “To have that relief in the centre, which is often quite dark in this type of home that’s encroached on all sides by other buildings, certainly adds to the feeling of space.”

The garden addition is not the only nod to Japanese design in the Hidden Garden House. Laura and Aman prioritise simplicity and quality in their lives, and the wabi-sabi world view became a guiding principle in their renovation brief for TRIAS. With a building whose tasteless prior additions were leaking and crumbling, the distinctive hand-hewn quality of the resultant home is not only charming but was also necessary in keeping the project to budget. That the owners actively contributed to the project is part of the way the home celebrates the idiosyncrasies of its dwellers.

The architects sought to minimise the number of solid walls that divided the upper floor, instead using timber blocks to house storage and the wardrobe that serve as blocks that encase the space.

“We knew that Laura is a ceramicist, and while she’d never made tiles before, she agreed to give it a go and basically started prototyping from that moment forward,” explains Jennifer of Laura’s contribution to the project, which included the white tiles that surround the atrium, seamlessly marrying up with the rendered brickwork and additionally serving to bounce light into the home, increasing the overall brightness of the ground floor spaces. A terracotta floor tile, meanwhile, merges tonally with floorboards and the timber joinery. “Laura would come to every meeting with different samples of what she’d been playing with – different grog mixes and glaze finishes – and we’d just line them up to figure out what looked best side by side and take them on site to check them in the light. She was a champion of the process, experimenting and testing until we got it right, and we learned a lot doing it.”

A renovation like this certainly calls for a client who would truly commit to the vision but, as Jennifer says of Laura and Aman, “this is what peace and tranquillity for them looks like – a house that is very considered, that embraces a slower pace, where things like meals and resting and bathing are done with a level of care and attention.” It is for this reason that, beyond leaving the exterior shell relatively untouched in accordance with council heritage restrictions, TRIAS sought to significantly simplify the
interior layout, sacrificing the number of individual rooms for larger indoor and outdoor spaces.

Despite the limitations on obvious environmentally-friendly fixtures, such as solar panels – which are prohibited within the heritage context – thoughtful consideration was placed around material finishes.

From the staircase that sleeves along the eastern boundary – enclosing a laundry and storage – the upper floor was converted into one large space housing the single bedroom along with a bathroom. In contrast
to conventional planning, spaces are zoned by handmade timber-lined blocks – by the project’s lead builder Stefan Zandt – instead of walls, adding a sense that the house continues on. “They understood that these were sacrifices worth making, and they absolutely love the house now, but it’s a really rare thing in a client to have somebody who is willing to lose, say, a bedroom to gain a garden,” says Jennifer.

While sustainability was a priority for both TRIAS and the home’s owners, the site’s heritage listing and orientation hindered the lengths they could go. The focus, instead, turned to creating a home that would withstand its future – both structurally as well as stylistically. Despite the limitations on obvious environmentally-friendly fixtures, such as solar panels – which are prohibited within the heritage context – thoughtful consideration was placed around material finishes. The sandstone steps, for example, were salvaged from a nearby demolition, while the bathroom tiles were wastage from bathroom supplier Artedomus.

Hidden Garden House is, above all, an embodiment of its owners’ values, emblematic of their commitment to simple design and authentic personal finishes. “It’s just a really calm space,” offers Jennifer. “Serene and peacefully private, it is this lovely, enveloping structure that immediately sets the tone and atmosphere when you enter it and mirrors the character of its owners.”