Grand Designs Australia TV house Sri Lanka-inspired family-friendly home

With the style agreed upon, they turned their attention to the layout. The main focus was that the building should work to unite the household. ‘We’re close-knit,’ says Daniela. ‘We didn’t want to segregate ourselves.’ It’s something Nottle took to heart. ‘The most important thing was to enable family life to flourish,’ he says.

The new home follows the same basic footprint of the old one, but with just two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Downstairs, where most of the family’s time is spent, the floor follows a T-shape. From the entrance, a garage sits to the left and a corridor to the right leads to a guest room, bathroom and family workroom, equipped as a home office, library and music room. Projecting out from this set of spaces is the key design element of the build, and the part the homeowners, architects and builders are most proud of – a spectacular, gravitydefying pavilion with an open-plan kitchen, dining and living area. It’s topped with concrete, which is supported by four reinforced corner pillars, so there’s no need for supporting columns. This means the glazed walls can be totally opened up to embrace the outdoors. It’s here that Bawa’s Sri Lankan influence is most obvious. ‘We wanted a house that could easily transition from outdoors to in,’ says Daniela. ‘When the windows are open in the height of summer, it feels as though the garden is coming inside.’

Most of the structural work on the build went into ensuring the stability of the 14x10m concrete slab, which weighs over 100 tonnes. The project came to a threeweek halt while the structural engineer worked out its complex equations. The concrete was poured into a frame of spun steel cages, designed to distribute the weight of the concrete down into the pillars at each corner. Timber boards, taken from the previous house, held it up as it set, so the ceiling is marked with the distinctive textures of wood. Incredibly, considering its weight, the top is a rooftop garden, visible from the master bedroom. While it looks like a deep bed, it’s actually made up of a drainage system topped with a thin layer of earth to minimise the extra weight and ensure there’s no build-up of water. It’s planted with bromeliads that will spill over the edges to create a hanging garden.

Daniela project-managed the build and was on site almost every day. A lot of the textures are down to her creative eye, as well as most of the colours and wood stains. ‘I wanted the surfaces to be as raw as possible,’ she says. ‘The concrete has a rough feel. It reminds me of the kind I used to work with as a child, helping my dad on his build.’ Attention to detail was key. ‘I don’t know if everything is immediately obvious,’ she says, ‘but if that level of detail wasn’t there, you would miss it.’

With its garden courtyards and lush outlook, the home feels tranquil – a perfect hideaway for a busy family living amid the hustle and bustle of Sydney. ‘We wanted to create a peaceful retreat within the city,’ says Nottle, and that is certainly what the team has achieved. Whether it’s in the library, the living pavilion with the sun beaming in and the doors wide open, or upstairs overlooking the garden, there is a sense of calm and of escape. It is a striking testament to what can be achieved with a strong design concept, plenty of research and a clear set of goals.

Words: Emma Wheaton, Photography: Nick Wilson

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